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OEATION 

I) !■; I, I V K K K n BEFORE 

THE CITY Am:HORITIES 

OF BOSTON, 



ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 18G0, 



EDWARD EYEPvETT. 



T ()<; El' H K i; w iTir 
TiiK si't;i;(iii:s at tmk dinner in fanecii. hall, and other ceremonie; 

AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE 
EKWrrY-KolRTU \NNI\EI;SARV OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 



P, S T N : 

(iKO. V. KAN I) v^ AVEKY, CITY PKIXTEKS, 

NO. •" CORN HILL. 

18 6 0. 



ORATIO:^ 

I) K r. I V E I! i: 1 1 H !•; f o r e 

THE CITY AUTHORITIES 

or BOSTON, 
ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 18G0, 



EDWARD EYEllETT. 



TO (i ET 11 i: i: \v I r ii 

THE SPEECHES AT THE DINXEK IN FAXEril, HALL, AND <>lin;i: < ' I.UIOM" )N 1 1: 

AT THE CEI.EBllATIOX <>F THE 

EIGilTV-FOrRTH ANNIVERSARY OF A.MEltKAN IN 1 lEl'EN 1>EN(' K. 



BOSTON: 

GEO. C. RAND & AVERY, CITY PRINTERS 

NO. 3 COR Nil ILL. 

1 8 GO. 









1^ EGT^^OIT^A 5, 
Vt, COHDIIAAUI • '9/ 
<^^ IS 30- ,^^ 



C 1 T Y ( ) F B S T N . 



J)t ('oilUllOII ('l)IUI(if. •/"/// •'). lf^()0. 

Ordered: That the thanks of the City ('(nuicil I.e. and they 
are hereby presented to the Hon. Edward Kvkkktt. tor liis ahle. 
elo(}uent, and patriotic oration before the ^lunicipal Autliorities oi' 
the City of Boston, on the Eiuhty-Fourtli Anniversary of the 
Declaration of the Independence of the United States of Amer- 
ica, and in vindication of tlieir l{epn})lican Institutions, and tbat 
he be requested to furnisli a copy to tlie City Council for j»nbli- 
cation. 

Sent up for concurrence. 

J, P. BllADLKi:. rrr^i.Jnit. 

In Board nf AhlrniKn. Jiilj/ i), lS(i<). 
Passed iu concurrence. 

OTIS CFAJ'P. dnnrmnv. 

Apjiroved July 10, 1S()0, 

F. W. L1X(;0LX. .11!.. Mm/or. 



R A J^ 1 ( ) N . 



11 A T I N . 



Eighty-four years ago this day, the Aiiu'lo-American 
Colonies, acting hy their delegates to the Congress 
at Philadelphia, formally renonnced their allegiance 
to the British Crown and declared their Inde])end- 
ence. We are assembled, Fellow-Citizens, to com- 
memorate the Anniversary of tliat great day, ;nid 
the ntterance of that momentous Decliirjitiou. The 
hand that penned its mighty sentences, and the 
tongue which, with an elo(|uence that swept all 
before it, sustained it on the Hoor of the Congress, 
ceased from among the living, at the end of half a 
century, on the same day, almost at the same hour, 
thirty-four vears ago. The last survivor of the sio-n- 
ers, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, closed his vener- 
able career six years later; — and of the generation 
sufticiently advanced in life to take a part in public 
affiiirs on the fourth of July. 1776, how few are 
living to hail this eighty-fourth anniversarv ! Thev 
are gone, ])ut their work remains. It has grown in 
interest with the lapse of years, beginning alread\' 



8 



to add to its intrinsic importance those titles to 
respect, Avhicli time confers on •rreat events and 
memoral)le eras, as it hangs its ivy and plants its 
mosses on the solid strnctures of tiie Past. — and ?i'e 
are now come together to hear our testimony to the 
Day, the Deed, and the Men. We have shut up our 
offices, our warehouses, our worksho])s, — we have 
escaped from the cares of business, may I not add 
from the dissensions of party, from all that occupies 
and all that divides us, to celebrate, to Join in celebrat- 
ing, the Birthday of the Nation, with one heart and 
w'lih one voice. We have come for this year, 18G(), 
to do our part in fulfilling the remarkable predic- 
tion of that noljle son of Massachusetts, John Adams, 
— who, in the language of Mr. Jefferson, was " the 
Colossus of Independence, — the pillar of its support 
on the floor of Congress." Although the Declaration 
was not adopted hy Congress till the fourth of Jul}', 
(which has therefore become the day of the Anni- 
versary,) the Resolution, on which it Avas founded, 
passed on the second instant. On the following day 
accordingly, John Adams, in a letter to his wife, 
says, " Yesterday the greatest question was decided 
that was ever debated in America, and greater per- 
haps never was nor will be decided among men. A 
resolution was passed without one dissenting Colony, 
that these United States are and of right ought to 
)k' Free and Independent States." Unalde to restrain 



9 



the fulness of his emotions, in another letter to his 
wife, hut of the same elate, naturally assuming that 
the clay on which the resolution was passed would 
be the day hereafter commemorated, he hvu-sts out 
in this all but inspired strain : — 

The day is passed; the second day of July, 1776, will be the 
most memorable epocha in the History of America. I am apt to 
believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the 
great Anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated as the 
day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It 
ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, — with shows, games, 
sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this 
Continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore I 

You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but 1 am not. 
I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure, that it will 
cost us to maintain this Declaration and support and defend these 
States. Yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravish- 
ing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth 
all the means ; and that posterity will triumph in that day's 
transaction, even although we should rue it, — which I trust in 
God we shall not. 

The time which has elapsed since the great event 
took place is so considerable, — the national experience 
which has since accrued is so varied and significant, 
— the chana;es in our condition at home and our 
relations abroad are so vast, as to make it a natural 
and highly appropriate subject of inquiry, on the 
recurrence of the Anniversary, how far the hopefid 
auguries, with which our Independence was declared. 



10 



have been fulfilled. Has "-the gloom" which, in the 
language of Adams, shrouded the 4th of July, 1776, 
given way on this 4th of July, 18()0, '• to those rays 
of ravishini!: lio-lit and iAov\ " which lie i)redicted ? 
Has " the end," as he fondly believed it would do, 
proved thus far to be " more than worth all the 
means ? " Most signally, so for as he individually 
was concerned. He lived himself to enjoy a more 
than Roman triumph, in the result of that day's 
transaction ; to sign with his brother envoys the 
treaty of peace, by which Great Britain acknowl- 
edged the indej^endence of her ancient Colonies ; 
to stand before the British throne, the first repre- 
sentative of the newly constituted Republic ; and 
after havino; filled its second office in connection watli 
him, who, whether in peace or in war, could never 
fill any place but the first, — in office as in the 
hearts of his countrymen, — he lived to succeed to 
the great Chief, and closed his honored career, as 
the elective Chief Magistrate of those United States, 
wdiose independence he had done so much to estab- 
lish ; w^ith the rare additional felicity at the last of 
seeing his son elevated to the same station. 

But the life of an individual is but a span in the 
life of a Nation ; the fortunes of individuals, for good 
or for evil, are but as dust in the balance, compared 
with the growth and prosperity or the decline and 
fall of that greatest of human Personalities, a Com- 



11 



monwealtli. It is, therefore, a more momentous 
inquiry, "svlietlier the great design of Providence, 
with reference to our beloved country, of which we 
trace the indications in the recent discovery of the 
Continent, the manner of its settlement by the civil- 
ized races of the earth, the Colonial struggles, the 
establishment of Independence, the formation of a 
constitution of republican government, and its admin- 
istration in peace and war for seventy years, — I 
say, it is. a for more important inquiry whether this 
great design of Providence is in a course of steady 
and progressive fulfilment, — marked only by the 
fluctuations, ever visible in the march of human 
aftairs, — and authorizing a well-grounded hope of 
further development, in harmony with its auspicious 
beginnings, — or whether there is reason, on the 
other hand, to fear that our short-lived prosperity 
is already (as misgivings at home and disparagement 
abroad have sometimes whispered) on the wane, — 
that we have reached, that we have passed the 
meridian, — and have now to look forward to an 
evening of degeneracy, and the closing in of a ray- 
less and hopeless night of political decline. 

You are justly shocked, fellow-citizens, at the l^are 
statement of the ill-omened alternative ; and yet the 
inquiry seems forced on us, by opinions that have 
recently been advanced in high places abroad. In a 
debate in the House of Lords, on the PJth of April, 



12 



on a (pR'stion relative to the extension of the elective 
franchise in England, (the pnnciple which certainly 
lies at the l)asis of representative government,) the 
example of the United States, instead of being held 
u]) for imitation in this respect, as has generally 
been the case, on the subject of })opular reforms, was 
referred to as showing not the advantages but the 
evils of an enlarged suffrage. It was enqihatically 
asserted or i)lainly inthnated by the person who took 
the lead in the debate, (Earl Grey,) the son of the 
distinguished author of the bill for the Reform of 
Parliament, whose family traditions therefore might 
be expected to ])e strongly on the side of popular 
right, that, in the United States, since the Revo- 
lutionary period, and by the nndue extension of 
the right, of suffrage, our elections have become a 
mockery, our legislatures ven;d, our courts tainted 
with party si)irit, oin- Liavs ' cobwebs,' wdiicli the rich 
and poor alike break through, and the country, and 
the government in all its branches, given over to 
corruption, violence, and a general disregard of public 
morality. 

If these opinions are well foTuided, then certainly 
we labor under a great delusion in celebrating the 
National Anniversary. Instead of joyous chimes and 
meriy peals, responding to the triumphant salvos 
which ushered in the day, the Fourth of July ought 
rather to be couuuemorated l)y fimeral bells, and 



minute-guns, and dead marches ; and we, instead of 
assembling in this festal hall to congratulate each 
other on its happy return, should have been Ijetter 
found in sackcloth and ashes in the house of peni- 
tence and prayer. 

I believe that I shall not wander from tlie line of 
remark appropriate to the occasion, if I invite you to 
join me in a hasty inquiry, whether these charges 
and intimations are well founded ; whether we have 
thus degenerated from the standard of the Revolution- 
ary age ; whether the salutary checks of our system 
formerly existing have, as is alleged, been swept away, 
and our experiment of elective self-government has 
consequently become a failure ; whether, in a word, 
the great design of Providence, to which I have alluded, 
in the discovery, settlement, political independence, 
and national growth of the United States, has been 
prematurely arrested by our perversity; or wdiether, 
on the contrary, that design is not, — with those vicis- 
situdes, and drawbacks, and human infirmities of char- 
acter, and uncertainties of fortune, which beset alike 
the individual man and the societies of men, in the 
old world and the new, — in a train of satisfactory, 
hopeful, nay, triumphant and glorious fulfilment. 

And in the first place I will say that, in my judg- 
ment, great delicac}^ ought to be observed and much 
caution practised in these disparaging commentaries on 
the constitution, laws, and administrations of friendly 



14 



states ; and especially on the part of British and 
American statesmen in their comments on the s^'S- 
tems of their two countries, between which there is 
a more intimate connection of national s^-mpathy 
than between any two other nations, I must say 
that, as a matter both of taste and expediency, these 
specific arrai^u'uments of a foreign friendly country 
had better be left to the public press. ^Yithout 
wishing to put any limit to free discussion, or to 
proscrilje any expression of the patriotic complacency 
with which the citizens of one country are apt to 
assert the superiority of their own systems over 
those of all others, it appears to me that pungent 
criticisms on the constitutions and laws of foreiu:n 
states, and their practical operation, supported b}^ 
direct personal allusions to those called to administer 
them, are nearly as much out of place on the part 
of the legislative as of the executive branch of a 
government. On the part of the latter, they would 
be resented as an intolerable insult ; they cannot l)e 
deemed less than ofiensive on the part of the 
fonner. 

If there were no other objection to this practice, 
it would be sufficient, that its direct tendency is to 
recrimination ; a warfare of reciprocal disparagement, 
on the part of conspicuous memljers of the legisla- 
tures of friendly states. It is plain that a parlia- 
mentary warfare of this kind must u'reatlv increase 



15 



the dIfFiciilty of camiiig on the diplomatic discus- 
sions, which necessarily occur between states whose 
commercial and territorial interests touch and clash 
at so man}' points ; and the war of words is Init too 
well adapted to prepare the public mind for more 
deplorable struggles. 

Let me further also remark, that the suo:o:estion 
which I propose to combat, viz. that the experiment 
of self-government on the basis of an extensive elec- 
toral franchise is substantially a failure in the United 
States, and that the country has entered upon a 
course of rapid degeneracy since the days of Wash- 
ington, is not only one of great antecedent improb- 
ability, but it is one which, it might be expected, our 
brethren in England would Ije slow to admit. The 
mass of the population was originally of British 
origin, and the additional elements, of which it is 
made up, are from the other most intelligent and 
improvable races of Europe. The settlers of this 
Continent have been providentially conducted to it, 
or have grown up upon it, within a comparatively 
recent and highly enlightened period, namely, the last 
two hundred and fifty years. Much of it they found 
Ij^ing in a state of nature, with no time-honored 
abuses to eradicate ; abounding in most of the 
physical conditions of prosperous existence, and with 
few drawljacks but those necessarily incident to new 
countries, or inseparable from human imperfection. 



16 



Even the hardships tliey encountered, severe as they 
were, were well calculated to promote the growth 
of the manly virtues. In this great and promising 
field of social progress, they have planted, in the 
main, those political institutions, which have approved 
themselves in the experience of modern Europe and 
especially of England, as most favorable to the pros- 
perity of a state; — free representative governments; 
— written constitutions and laws, greatly modelled 
upon hers, especially the trial by jury; — a free and 
a cheap- and consequently all-pervading ^^ress ; — 
responsibility of the ruler to the people ; liberal pro- 
vision for popular education, and very general vol- 
untary and bountiful expenditure for the support of 
religion. If under these circumstances, the People of 
America, springing from such a stock, and trained in 
such a school, have failed to work out a satisfactory 
and a hopeful result ; and especially if within the 
last sixty years (for that is the distinct allegation) 
and consequently since, from the increase of numbers, 
wealth, and national power, all the social forces of 
the country have, for good or evil, been in higher 
action than ever before, there has been such marked 
deterioration that we are now fit to be held up, not 
as a model to be imitated, but as an example to be 
shunned, — not for the credit but for the discredit 
of popular institutions, — then, indeed, the case must 
be admitted to l)e a strange phenomenon in human 



1' 



aft'airs, — disgraceful, it is true, in the highest degree 
to us, — not reflectino; credit on the race from which 
we are descended, — nor holding out encouragement 
anywhere for the adoption of lil)eral principles of 
government. If there is any feeling in England 
that can w^elcome the thought, that Americans have 
degenerated, the further reflection that it is the sons 
of Encrlishmen who have deii'enerated, must chasten 
the sentiment. If there is any country, where this 
supposed state of things should 1)e readily helieved 
to exist, surely it cannot ))e the parent country. 
If there is any place wliere such a suggestion should 
find ready credence, it cannot he in that House of 
Commons, where Burke uttered those golden words: 
"My hold of the Colonies is in the close affection 
which grows from common names, from kindred 
blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection." 
It cannot be in that House of Peers, where Chatham, 
conscious that the Colonies were fio-hting the battle 
not only of American Init of English liberty, ex- 
claimed, w^ith a fervor that almost caused the 
storied tapestry to quicken into life, " I rejoice that 
America has resisted." It must be in Venice, it 
must be in Naples, or wherever else on the face 
of the earth li])eral principles are scofied at, and 
constitutional freedom is known to exist, only as 
her crushed and mangled form is seen to twitch 
and quiver under the dark pall of arl)itrary [)()wer. 



18 



Befoi-e adinittiiig the trutli of siieli a .supposition, 
in itself so paradoxical, in its moral aspects so niourn- 
fal, in its natiu'al influence on the progress of liberal 
ideas so discourao-ins-, let us, for a, few moments, loolv 
at facts. 

The first olyect in the order of events, after the 
discovery of America, was, of course, its settlement 
by civilized man. It was not an easy task; — a 
mighty ocean separated the continent from the elder 
world ; a savage wilderness covered most of the 
country ; its barbarous and warlike inhabitants resisted 
from the first all coalescence with the new comers. 
To subdue this waste, — to plant cornfields in the 
primeval forest, to transfer the civilization of Europe 
to the new Avorld, and to make safe and sufficient 
arrangements, under political institutions, for the 
organized growth of free principles, — was the great 
problem to be solved. It was no holiday pastime, — 
no gainful speculation, — no romantic adventure; but 
grim, persistent, weary toil and danger. That it 
has been upon tlie whole performed with wonderful 
success, who will deny ? Where else in the history 
of the woi'ld have such results Ijeen brouii'lit a])Out 
in so short time? And if I desired, as I do not, to 
give this discussion the character of recrimination, 
might 1 not, — dividing the period which has elapsed 
since the conunencement of the European settlements 
in America into two portions, namely, the one which 



10 



})recede(l and the one which has fohowed the Dec- 
laration of Independence, the former under the sway 
of European governments, England, Holland, France, 
Spain, the latter under the government of the inde- 
pendent United States, — might I not claim for the 
latter, imder all the disadvantnges of a new govern- 
ment and limited I'esources, the credit of greatly 
superior enei'gv aud practical wisdom, in carrying 
on this magnificent work ? It was the inherent vice 
of the colonial system, that the growth of the Amer- 
ican colonies was greatly retarded for a century, in 
consequence of their heing involved in all the wars 
of Europe. There never was a period, on the other 
hand, since Columhus sailed from P;dos, in which 
the settlement of the country has advanced with 
such rapidity as within the last sixty years. The 
commencement of the lievolution found us with a 
population not greafly exceeding two millions ; the 
census of 1800 a little exceeded hve millions; that 
of the present year will not prol)ably fall short of 
thirty-two millions. The tw^o centuries and a half 
which preceded the Revolution witnessed the organ- 
ization of thirteen Colonies, raised by the Declaration 
to States, to which the period that has since elapsed 
has added twenty more. I own it has filled me 
with amazement to find cities like Cincinnati and 
Louisville, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis, not to 
mention those still more remote, on spots which 



20 



within the memory of muii were frontier military 
posts ; — to find railroads and electric telegraphs 
traversing forests, in whose gloomy shades, as late 
as 1789, and in territories not more remote than 
the present State of Ohio, the wild savage still 
burned his captives at the stake. 

The desponding or the unfriendly censor will 
remind me of the blemishes of this tumultuous 
civilization; — outbreaks of frontier violence in earlier 
and later times ; acts of injustice to the native 
tribes, (though the policy of the (Jovernment toward 
them has in the main been paternal and conscien- 
tiously administered,) the roughness of manners in 
infant settlements, the collisions of adventurers not 
yet compacted into a stable society, deeds of wild 
justice and wilder injustice, border license, lynch law. 
All these I admit and I lament ; — but a community 
cannot grow up at once from the log-cabin, with the 
wolf at the door and the savage in the neighboring 
thicket, into the order and beauty of communities 
which have been maturino- for centuries. We must 
rememljer, too, that all these blemishes of an infant 
settlement, the inseparalde accompaniment of that 
stage of progress and phase of society and life, have 
their counter] )art at the other end of the scale, in 
the festeiing iniquities of large cities, the gigantic 
frauds of speculation and trade, the wholesale corrup- 
tion, in a word, of older societies, in all parts of the 



21 



world. When I reflect that the day we celel)rate 
found lis a feeble strip of thirteen Colonies along the 
coast, averaging at most a little more than 150,000 
inhabitants each ; and that this, its eighty-fourth 
return, sees ns grown to thirty-three States, scattered 
tlirough the interior and pushed to the Pacific, aver- 
aging nearly a million of inhabitants, — each a well- 
compacted representative republic, securing to its 
citizens a larger amount of the substantial blessings 
of life, than are enjoyed by equal numbers of people 
in the oldest and most prosperous States of Europe, 
I am lost in wonder ; and, as a sufficient answer to 
all general charges of degeneracy, I am tempted to 
exclaim, Look around you. 

But, merely to fdl up the wilderness with a pop- 
ulation provided with the ordinary institutions and 
carrying on the customar}' ^^i^^i'^^^-^its of civilized life, 
thouii'll surelv no mean achievement, was not the 
whole of the work allotted to the United States, and 
thus fjir performed with signal activity, intelligence, 
and success. The Founders of America and their 
descendants have accomplished more and better 
things. On the basis of a rapid geographical exten- 
sion, and with the Ibi'ce of teeming numbers, they 
have, in the ver}' infancy of their political existence, 
successfully aimed at higher progress in a generous 
civilization. The meclumical arts have not only been 
cultivated, but thev have been cultivated with unusual 



9^) 



aptitude. Agriculture, Manufactures, Connnerce, Nav- 
igation, whether by sails or steam, and the art of 
printing in all its forms and in all its applications, 
have been pursued with surprising skill. Great im- 
provements have been made in all these branches 
of industry, and in the machinery pertaining to 
them, Avhicli have been eagerly adopted in Europe. 
A more adequate provision has been made for pop- 
ular education, the great basis, humanly speaking 
of social improvement, than in almost any other 
country. I Ijelieve that in the cities of Boston, New 
York, and Philadelphia, more money, in proportion 
to the population, is raised l)y taxation for the support 
of common schools, than in any other cities in the 
world. There are more seminaries in the United 
States, where a decent academical education can ))e 
(jl)tained, — moi'c, 1 still mean in proportion to the 
population, — than in any other country except Ger- 
many. The Fine Arts have reached a high degree 
of excellence. The taste for music is rapidly spread- 
ing in town and country ; and every year witnesses 
productions from the pencil and the chisel of American 
sculptors and painters, which would adorn any gidlery 
in the world. Our Astronomers, Mathematicians, 
Naturalists, Chemists, Engineers, Jurists, Publicists, 
Historians, Poets, Novelists, and Lexicographers, have 
placed themselves on a level with their contemporaries 
abroad. The best dictionaries of the Emrlish lang^uafre 



•)•-> 



since that of Johnson, are those published in America. 
Our constitutions, ^vhethe^ of the United States or 
of the separate States, exchide all public provision 
for the maintenance of Religion, but in no part of 
Christendom is it more generously supported. Sacred 
Science is pursued as diligently and the pulpit com- 
mands as high a degree of respect in the United 
vStates, as in those countries where the Church is 
1)ul)rK'lv endowed; while the American Missionary 
operations have won the admiration of the civilized 
world. Nowhere, I am persuaded, are there more 
liberal contributions to public-spirited and charitable 
objects, — witness the remarkable article on that sub- 
ject, the second of the kind, by Mr. Eliot, in the last 
number of the North American Review. Our char- 
itable asylums, houses of industry, institutions for the 
education of deaf mutes and the blind, for the care 
of the pauper, and the discipline and reformation of 
the criminal, are nowhere surpassed. The latter led 
the w'ay in the modern penitentiary reforms. In a 
word, there is no branch of the mechanical or line 
arts, no department of science exact or applied, no 
form of polite literature, no description of social 
improvement, in which, due allowance being made 
for the means and resources at command, the progress 
of the United States has not been satisfactory, and 
in some respects astonishing. At this moment, tlie 
rivers and seas of the u'lobe are navig-ated with that 



24 



marvellous application of steam us a propelling powei- 
wliicli was first practically effected hy Fulton; tlie mon- 
ster steamship which has just reached onr shores, 
rides at anclior in the waters, in which the first 
successful experiment of Steam Navigation was made. 
The wheat hai-vest of England this summer will he 
gathered hy American reapei-s ; the newspapers which 
lead the journalism of Enro],e are printed on American 
presses; there are imperial llailroads in Europe con- 
structed l)y American Engineers and travelled hy 
American locomotives; troops aru.ed with American 
vvea].ons, and ships of war huilt iu American dock- 
yards. ]n the factories of Europe there is machinery 
of American invention or improvement; in their 
observatories, telescopes of American construction; 
and apparatus of American invention for I'ecording 
the celestial phenomena. America contests with 
Europe the introduction into actual use of the 
electric telegraph, and her mode of operating it is 
adopted throughout the French empire. Anierican 
authors in almost every department of science and 
Hterature are found on the shelves of European 
libraries. It is true no American Homer, Virgil, 
Dante, Copernicus, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, NeV 
ton, lias risen on the world. These mighty geniuses 
seem to be exceptions in the history of the human 
mind. Favorable circumstances do not produce them, 
nor does the absence of favorable circumstances pre- 



25 



vent their appearance. Homer rose in the dawn 
of Grecian cultnre ; Yirgil fiourished in the Court 
of Augustus ; Dante ushered in the birth of the 
modern European Hterature ; Copernicus was reared 
in a Pohsh cloister ; Shakespeare was trained in the 
greenroom of a theatre ; Milton was formed while 
the elements of English thought and life were fer- 
menting toward a great political and moral revolution ; 
Newton, under the profligacy of the Restoration. Ages 
may elapse before any country will produce a mind 
like these ; as two centuries have passed since the 
last-mentioned of them was born. But if it is really 
a mark of inferiority on the part of the United States, 
that in the comparatively short period of their exist- 
ence as a people, they have not added another name 
to this illustrious list, (which is equally true of all 
the other nations of the earth,) they may proudly 
boast of one example of Life and Character, one 
career of disinterested service, one model of public 
virtue, one type of human excellence, of wdiich all 
the countries and all the ages may be searched in 
vain for a parallel. I need not, — on this day I 
need not, — speak the peerless name. It is stamped 
on your hearts, it glistens in your eyes, it is written 
on every page of your history, on the l)attle-fields 
of the Revolution, on the monuments of your Fathers, 
on the portals of your capitols. It is heard in every 
breeze that whispers over the fields of Independent 



26 



America. And he was all our own. lie grew up 
on the soil of America ; he was nurtured at her 
bosom. She loved and trusted him hi his youth ; 
she honored and revered him in his age ; and though 
she did not w^ait for death to canonize his name, his 
precious memory, with each succeeding year, has sunk 
more deeply into the hearts of his countrymen! 

But, as I have already stated, it was \n\u-ed against 
us in substance on the occasion alluded to, that within 
the last sixty years the United States liave degen- 
erated, and that by a series of changes, at first appar- 
ently inconsiderable, but all leading by a gradual and 
steady progression to the same result, a very discredit- 
able condition of things has been broudit about in 
this country. 

Without stating precisely what these supposed 
changes are, the "result" is set forth in a somewdiat 
remarkable series of reproachful allegations, far too 
numerous to be repeated in detail, in what remains of 
this address, but implying in the aggregate little less 
than the general corruption of the country, — ^^^litical, 
social, and moral. The severity of these reproaches 
is not materially softened by a few courteous w^ords 
of respect for the American People. I shall in a 
moment select for examination two or three of the 
most serious of these charges, observing only at 
present that the pros^^erous condition of the country, 
which I have imperfectly sketched, and especially its 



27 



astonishing growth, during the present centuiy in the 
richest products, material and intellectual, of a rapidly 
maturing civilization, furnish a sufficient defence 
against the general charge. Men do not gather the 
grapes and figs of science, art, taste, wealth, and 
manners from the thorns and thistles of lawlessness, 
venality, fraud, and violence. These fair fruits grow 
only in the gardens of public peace, and industry 
protected by the Law. 

In the outset let it be observed then, that the 
assumed and assigned cause of the reproachful and 
deplorable state of things alleged to exist in the 
United States is as imaginary, as the effects are 
exaggerated or wholly unfounded in fiict. The 
" checks established by Washington and his associates 
on an unbalanced democracy " in the general govern- 
ment have never, as is alleged, "been sw^ept away," 
— not one of them. The great constitutional check 
of this kind, ■ as far as the General Government is 
concerned, is the limitation of the granted powers of 
Congress ; the reservation of the rights of the States ; 
and the organization of the Senate as their re^^resent- 
ative. These constitutional provisions, little compre- 
hended abroad, which give to the smallest States equal 
weight with the largest, in one branch of the national 
legislature, impose a very efficient check on the 
power of a numerical majority ; and neither in this 
nor in any other provision of the Constitution, bearing 



28 



on the subject, lias the slightest change ever been 
made. Not only so, but the prevalent policy since 
1800 has been in favor of the reserved rights of the 
States, and in consequent derogation of the powers of 
the General Government. In fact, when the Reform 
Bill was agitated in England, and hy the conservative 
statesmen of that country stigmatized as '^a revolution," 
it was admitted that the United States possessed in 
their written Constitution, and in the difficulty of 
procuring amendments to it, a conservative principle 
unknown to the English government. 

In truth, if by " an nnljalanced democracy " is meant 
such a government as that of Athens, or republican 
Rome, or the Italian Republics, or the English Com- 
monwealth, or revolutionary France, there not only 
never was, ])ut never can be such a thing in the United 
States, unless our whole existing S3^stem should be 
revolutionized, and that in a direction to which there 
never has been the slightest approach. The very fact 
that the great mass of the population is broken up 
into separate States, now thirty-three in number and 
rapidly multiplying, each with its local interests and 
centre of political influence, is itself a very efficient 
check on such a democracy. Then each of these 
States is a, re])resentative commonwealth, composed of 
two branches, with the ordinary divisions of executive, 
legislative, and judicial power. It is true, that in some 
of the States, some trifling property qualifications for 



29 



eligibility uiid the exercise of the elective franchise 
h.ave been {i])iogated, but not with any perceptiljle 
eflect on the number or character of the voters. The 
system, varying a little in the different States, always 
made a near approach to universal suffrage ; and the 
great increase of voters has been caused by the 
increase of population. Under elective governments, 
with a free press, with ardent party divisions, and 
in reference to questions that touch the heart of the 
people, pettj^ limitations on the right of suffrage are 
indeed 'cobwebs,' which the popular will breaks 
through. The voter may be one of ten, or one of 
fifty of the citizens, but on such questions he will vote 
in conformitv with the will of the great mass. If he 
resists it, the government itself, like that of France in 
1848, will go down. Agitation and popular commotion 
scoff at checks and balances, and as much in England 
as in America. When Nottingham Castle is in ruins 
and half Bristol a henp of ashes, monarchs and minis- 
ters must bend. The Reform Bill must then j3ass 
" through Parliament or over it," in the significant 
words of Lord Macaulay ; and that, whether the 
constituencies are great or small. That a restricted 
suffrage and a, limited constituency do not always 
insure independence on the part of the Representative, 
may be inferred from the rather remarkable admission 
of Lord Grev, in this very debate, that "a laro-e 
proportion of the members of the present House of 



10 



Commons are, from various circumstances, afraid to ad 
on their real opinions^' on the subject of the Reform Bill 
then before them. 

I have already observed that it would be impossible, 
within the limits of this address, to enter into a 
detailed examination of all the matters laid to our 
charge, on the occasion alluded to. The ministerial 
leader (Lord Granville) candidly admitted, in the 
course of the debate, that, though he concurred wath 
his brother peer in some of his remarks, " they were 
generally much exaggerated." We too must admit 
with reofret, that for some of the statements made to 
our discredit, there is a greater foundation in fact, than 
we could wish; that our political system, like all 
human institutions, however wise in theory and 
successful in its general operation, is liable to abuse ; 
that party, the bane of all free governments, works its 
mischief here ; that some bad men are raised to office 
and some good men excluded from it ; that public 
virtue here as elsewhere sometimes breaks down under 
the temptation of place or of gold ; that unwise laws 
are sometimes passed by our legislatures, and unpopu- 
lar laws sometimes violated by the mob; in short, that 
the frailties and vices of men and of governments are 
displayed in Republics as they are in Monarchies, in 
the New World as in the Old ; whether to a greater, 
equal, or less degree, time must show. The question 
of the great Teacher, to which the I'everend Chap- 



31 



lain lias Just called our attention, may as ])ertinently 
be asked of Nations as of individuals, " Why belioldest 
thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, and 
considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye ? " 

An honest and impartial administration of justice 
is the corner-stone of the social system. The most 
serious charges brought against us, on the occasion 
alluded to, are, that, owing to the all-pervading cor- 
ruption of the country, the Judges of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, who once commanded the 
public respect at home and abroad, are now ap- 
pointed for party purposes, and that some of their 
decisions have excited the disij-ust of all hii>i:h-minded 
men ; that the Judges of most of the State Courts 
hold their olFices by election, some by annual elec- 
tion ; that the undisputed dominion of the numerical 
majority, wdiich has been established, will not allow 
the desires and passions of the hour to be checked 
by a firm administration of justice; and that in con- 
sequence the laws in this country have become mere 
cobwebs to resist either the rich, or the popular feel- 
ing of the moment ; in a word that the American 
Astra?a, like the goddess of old, has lied to the stars. 
I need not say, fellow-citizens, in your hearing, that 
wherever else this may be true, (and I Ijelieve it to 
be nowhere true in the United States,) it is not true 
in our ancient connnonwealth ; and that Westminster 
Hall never boasted a Court more honored or more 



32 



Avoi'thy uf honor, than that which holds its office 
by a life tenure and administers impartial justice, 
without respect of persons, to the people of Massa- 
chusetts. 

Such a court the people of Massachusetts have no 
wish to change for an elective judiciary, holding 
office by a short tenure. In their opinion, evinced 
in their practice, this all-important branch of the gov- 
ernment ought to be removed, as far as possible, 
beyond the reach of political influences; but it is 
surely the grossest of errors to speak of the tribunals 
of the United States as being generally tainted with 
party, or to represent the law, in the main, as having 
ceased to be respected and enforced. Taking a com- 
prehensive view of the subject, and not drawing 
sweeping inferences from exceptional occurrences it 
may be safely said that the law of the land is ably, 
cheaply, and impartially administered in the United 
States, and implicitly obeyed. On a few questions, not 
half a dozen in numl:)er since the organization of the 
government, and those partaking of a political charac- 
ter, the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, like the questions to which they refer, have 
divided public opinion. But there is surely no trilnmal 
in the world, which, like that court has, since the foun- 
dation of the government, not only efficienth^ per- 
formed the ordinary functions of a tribunal of the last 
resort, to the general satisfaction of the country, but 



33 



which sits in judgment on the courts and legislatures 
of sovereign States, on acts of Congress itself, and pro- 
nounces the law to a confederation coextensive with 
Europe. I know of no such protection, under any 
other government, against unconstitutional legislation; 
if, indeed, any legislation can be called unconstitu- 
tional, where Parliament, alike in theory and practice, 
is omnipotent. 

With respect to the partisan character of our courts, 
inferred from the manner in which the judges are ap- 
pointed, the judges of the United States Courts, which 
are the tribunals sj)ecifically reflected on, are appointed 
in the same manner and hold their offices by the same 
tenure, as the English judges of the courts of common 
law. They are appointed for life, by the executive 
power, no doubt from the dominant party of the day, 
and this equally in both countries. The' presiding 
magistrate of the other branch of English jurispru- 
dence, — the Lord Chancellor, — is displaced with 
every change in politics," In seventy-one years, since 
the adoption of the Federal Constitution, there have 
been but four chief justices of the United States, 
and the fourth is still on the bench. In thirty-three 
years there have been, 1 believe, nine appointments 
of a Lord Chancellor, on as many changes of the 
ministry, and seven different individuals have filled 
the office, of whom five are living. As a member 
of the Cabinet, and Speaker of the House of Lords, 



34 



he is necessarily deep in all the political controversies 
of the day, and his vast official influence and patron- 
age, generally administered on political grounds, are 
felt throughout church and state. The Chief Justice 
of England is usually a member of the House of Lords, 
sometimes a member of the Cabinet. As a necessary 
consequence, on all questions of a political nature, the 
Court is open to the same suspicion of partisanship as 
in the United States, and for a much stronger reason, 
inasmuch as our judges can never be members of the 
Cabinet or of Congress. During a considerable part of 
his career, Lord Mansfield was engaged in an embit- 
tered political warfare with the Earl of Chatham, in 
the House of Lords. All the resources of the Eno;lish 
language were exhausted by Junius, in desolating and 
unpunished party libels on the Chief Justice of Eng- 
land ; and when the capital of the British Empire lay 
for six days at the mercy of Lord George Gordon's 
mob, its fury was concentrated against the same vener- 
able magistrate. 

The jurisprudence of this country strikes its roots 
deej) into that of England. Her courts, her magis- 
trates, her whole judicial system, are regarded by the 
profession in America with respect and afiection. But 
if, beginning at a period coeval with the settlement of 
America, we run down the line of the chancellors and 
chief justices, from Lord Bacon and Sir Edward Coke 
to the close of the last century, it will, in scarce any 



35 



generation, be found free from the record of personal, 
official, and political infirmities, from which an un- 
friendly censor might have drawn inferences hostile 
to the integrity of the tribunals of England, if not to 
the soundness of her public sentiment. But he would 
have erred. The character of governments and of in- 
stitutions is not to be judged of from individual men 
or exceptional occurrences, but must be gathered from 
a large experience, from general results, from the testi- 
mony of ages. A thousand years, and a revolution in 
almost every centur}^, have been necessary to build 
up the constitutional fabric of England to its present 
proportions and strength. Let her not play the 
uncharitable censor, if portions of our newly con- 
structed state machinery are sometimes heard to 
grate and jar. 

With respect to the great two-edged sword, wdtli 
which Justice smites the unfaithful public servant, 
the present Lord Chancellor (late Chief Justice) of 
England, observes, of the acquittal of Lord Melville, in 
1806, that "it showed that Impeachment can no longer 
be relied upon for the conviction of state offences, 
and can only be considered as a test of parftj strength;'" 
while of the standard of professional literature, the 
same venerable mai»;istrate, who unites the vio:or of 
youth to the experience and authority of fourscore 
years, remarks, with a candor, it is true, not very flat- 
tering to the United States, in the form of the expres- 



36 



sion, that down to the end of the reign of George the 
Third (a. d. 1820), "England was excelled by contem- 
porary juridical authors, not only in France, Italy, and 
Germany, but even America." I will only add, that, of 
the very great number of judges of our Federal and 
State Courts, — although frugal salaries, short terms of 
office, and the elective tenure may sometimes have 
called incompetent men to the bench, — it is not within 
my recollection, that a single individual has been sus- 
pected even of pecuniary corruption. 

Next in imjDortance to the integrity of the courts, 
in a well-governed state, is the honesty of the 
legislature. A remarkable instance of wholesale cor- 
ruption, in one of the new States of the West, 
consisting of the alleged bribery of a considerable 
number of the members of the legislature, by a 
distribution of Eailroad bonds, is quoted by Lord Grey, 
as a specimen of the corruption which has infected 
the legislation both of Congress and of the States, 
and as showing " the state of things which has arisen 
in that country." It was a very discreditable occur- 
rence certainly, (if truly reported, and of that I 
know nothing,) illustrative I hope, not of "a state 
of things," which has arisen in America, but of the 
degree to which large bodies of men, of whom better 
things might have been expected, may sometimes 
become so infected, when the mania of speculation 
is epidemic, that principle, prudence, and common 



sense give way, in the eagerness to clutch at sudden 
wealth. In a bubble season, the ordinary rules of 
morality lose their controlling power for a while, 
under the temptation of the day. The main current 
of public and private morality in England, probably 
flowed as deep and strong as ever, both before and 
after the South Sea frauds, when Cabinet ministers 
and Court ladies, and some of the highest personages 
in the realm ran mad after dishonest gains, and this 
in England's Augustan age. Lord Granville in reply 
observed that the " early legislation of England, in 
such matters, [Railways,] was not so free from 
reproach, as to justify us in attributing the bribery 
in America solely to the democratic character of the 
government," and the biographer of George Stephen- 
son furnishes facts which abundantly confirm the truth 
of this remark. After describing the extravagant 
length to which Railway speculation was carried in 
that country in 1844-1845, Mr. Smiles proceeds: — 

" Parliament, whose previous conduct in connection with Rail- 
way legislation was so open to reprehension, interposed no check, 
attempted no remedy. On the contrary, it helped to intensify the 
evil arising from this unseemly state of things. Many of its mem- 
bers were themselves involved in the mania, and as much inter- 
ested in its continuance as even the vulgar herd of money-grubbers. 
The railway prospectuses now issued, unlike the Liverpool and 
Manchester and London and Birmingham schemes, were headed 
by peers, baronets, landed proprietors, and strings of M. P.'s. Thus 
it was found in 1S45, that not fewer than one hundred and fifty- 



seven members of Parliament were on the list of new companies, 
as subscribers for sums ranging from two hundred and ninety-one 
thousand pounds sterling [not f;ir from a million and a half of 
dollars] downwards I The proprietors of new lines even came to 
boast of their parliamentary strength, and the number of votes 
they could command in ' the House.' The influence which land- 
owners had formerly brought to bear upon Parliament, in resisting 
railways, when called for by the public necessities, was now employed 
to carry measures of a far difiereut kind, originated by cupidity, 
knavery, and folly. But these gentlemen had discovered, by this 
time, that railways were as a golden mine to them. They sat at 
railway boards, sometimes selling to themselves their own land, at 
their own price, and paying themselves with the money of the 
unfortunate stockholders. Others used the radicat/ mania as a 
convenient, and to themseives ine.rjM'nsire, me>de of purchasing con- 
stituencies. It was strongly suspected that honorable members 
adopted what Yankee legislators call ' log-rolling ; ' that is, ' you 
help me to roll my log. and I will help you to roll yours.' At all 
events, it is a matter of fact that, through parliamentary influence, 
many utterly ruinous branches and extensions, projected during the 
mania, calculated only to benefit the inhabitants of a few miserable 
old boroughs, accidentally omitted from schedule A, were authorized 
in the memorable session of 1844-45." * 

These things, be it remembered, took place, not in 
a newly gathered republic, just sprouting, so to say, 
into existence on the frontier, inhabited by the pio- 
neers of civilization, who had rather rushed together, 
than grown up to the moral traditions of an ancient 
community; but they took place at the metropolis 
of one of the oldest monarchies in Europe, the centre 

* Smiles'? Life of Stephenson, p. 371. 



39 



of the civilized world, where public sentiment is prop- 
ped by the authority of ages ; heart of old English 
oak encased with the life circles of a thousand years. 
I was in London at the height of the mania ; I saw 
the Eailway King, as he was called, at the zenith 
of his power ; a member of Parliament, through 
which he walked quietly, it was said, "with some 
sixteen railway bills under his arm ; " almost a fourth 
estate of the realm ; his receptions crowded like 
those of a Royal Prince ; — and I saw the gilded 
bubble burst. But I did not write home to my 
government, that this marvellous " state of things " 
showed the corruption which springs from hereditary 
institutions, nor did I hint that an extension of the 
rio'ht of suffrao'e and a moderate infusion of the 

O o 

democratic principle were the only remedy. 

I have time for a few words only on the '■ unscrupu- 
lous and overbearing tone " which is said by Lord 
Grey to " mark our intercourse with foreign nations." 

"If anyone European nation," he observes, " were to act in the 
same manner, it t-ouhl not escape war for a single year. We our- 
selves have been rcjieatedly on the verge of a (juarrel with the 
United States. Witli no divergence of interest, Init the strongest 
possible interest on both sides to maintain the closest friendship, 
we have more than once been on the eve of a quarrel ; and that 
great calamity has now been avoided, because the government of 
this country has liad the good sense to treat the government of tlie 
Ignited States much as we should treat spoiled children, and 
though the right was clearly on our side, has yielded to the 



40 



uiireasouable pretensions of tlie United States. There is danger 
that this may be pushed too far, and that a question may arise, on 
which our honor and our interests will make concession on our part 
impossible." 

No one is an impartial judge in his own case. 
If we should meet these rather indiscreet suo-ocestions 
in the only way in which a charge without specifi- 
cations can be met, — by a denial as broad as the 
assertion, — the matter would be left precisely as 
it stood before ; that is, each party in its national 
controversies thinks itself right and its opponent 
wrong, which is not an uncommon case in human 
affairs, public and private. This at least may be 
added, without fear of contradiction, that the United 
States, in their intercourse with foreign governments 
have abstained from all interference in European 
politics, and have confined themselves to the protec- 
tion of their own rights and interests. As far as 
concerns theoretical doctrines on the subjects usually 
controverted between governments, a distinguished 
English magistrate and civilian pronounces the 
authority of the United States " to be always great 
upon all questions of International Law.'"-' Many of 
the questions which have arisen between this country 
and England, have been such as most keenly touch 
the national susceptibilities. That in discussing these 
questions, at home and abroad, no despatch has 

* R. Phillimore's International Law, vol. iii. p. 252, 



41 



been written, no word uttered, in a warmer tone 
than might be wished, is not to be expected, and is 
as little likely to have, happened on one side of the 
w\ater as the other. But that the intercourse of the 
United States with (Jreat Britain has, in the main, 
been conducted, earnestly indeed, as becomes power- 
ful States treating important sulijects, but cour- 
teously, gravely, and temperately, no one well 
acquainted with the facts will, I think, deny. 

It would not be ditTicult for me to pass in review 
our controversies with England, and to show that 
when she has conceded any portion of our demands, 
it has not been ))ecause they were urged in " an 
imscrupulous and overbearing tone," (an idea not 
very complimentary to herself,) but l)ecause they 
were founded in justice and sustained l)y argument. 
This is not the occasion for such a review. In a 
public address, wdiich I had the honor of delivering 
in this hall last September, I vindicated the ne- 
gotiations relative to the Northeastern Boundary, 
from the gross and persistent misrepresentations of 
which they have l^een the subject ; and I will now 
only briefly allude to by far the most important 
chapter in our diplomatic history. I go back to 
it, because, after the lapse of a generation, the truth 
has at length pierced through the mists of contem- 
porary interest and passion, and because it will suffi- 
ciently show by one very striking example, whether 



42 

in her intercourse with foreign nations, America has 
been in the habit of assuming an unscrupulous and 
overbearimi: tone, or whether she has been the victim 
of those quahties on the part of others. 

After the short-Hved pe;ice of Amiens, a new war, 
of truly Titanic proportions, broke out between 
France and England. In the progress of this tre- 
mendous struggle, and for the purpose of mutual 
destruction, a succession of Imperial decrees and 
Royal Orders in Council were issued by the two 
powers, by which all neutral commerce was anni- 
hilated. Each of the great belligerents maintained 
that his adversary's decree was a violation of Inter- 
national Law ; each justified his own edict on the 
ground of retaliation, which of course as far as the 
neutral was concerned was no justification ; — and 
between these great conflicting forces the rights and 
interests of neutrals were crushed. Under these 
orders and decrees, it is estimated that one hundred 
millions of American property were swept from the 
ocean ; — of the losses and sufferings of our citizens, 
in weary detention for years at Courts of Admiralty 
and Vice-Admiralty all round the globe, there can 
be no estimate. But peace returned to the world ; 
time wore away ; and after one generation of the 
original sufferers had sunk, many of them sorrow- 
stricken and ruined, into the grave, the government 
of King Louis Philippe, in France, acknowledged the 



wrong of the Imperial regime, by a late and partial 
measure of indemnification, obtained by means of 
the treaty negotiated with great ability, by Mr. 
Rives, of Virginia. England, in addition to the 
caj^tnre of our ships and the confiscation of their 
cargoes, had subjected the United States to the 
indignity of taking her seamen by impressment 
from our vessels, — a practice which, in addition to 
its illegality even under the law of England, and 
its cruelty, which have since caused it to l^e aban- 
doned at home, often led to the impressment of 
our own citizens, both naturalized and native. For 
this intolerable wrong (which England herself would 
not have endured a day, from any foreign power), 
and for the enormous losses accruing under the 
Orders in Council, the United States not only never 
received any indenniification, but the losses and 
sufferings of a war of two years and a half dura- 
tion, to which she was at length driven, were 
superadded. These orders were at the time regarded 
by the liberal school of British statesmen as unjust 
and oppressive towards neutrals ; and though the 
eminent civilian. Sir William Scott (afterwards Lord 
Stowell), who presided in the British Court of Ad- 
miralty, and who had laid the foundations of a 
princely fortune by fees accruing in prize causes/^ 

* Sketch of the Live.-; of Lords Slowoll aiul Ekloii. by William Edward Surteos, D.C.L. 
fa relative], p. 8S. 



44 

deemed it " extreme indecency" to admit the pos- 
sibility, that the Orders in Council could be in 
contravention of the public law, it is now the 
almost universal admission of the text-writers, that 
such was the case. As lately as 1847, the present 
Lord Chancellor, — then Lord Chief Justice of Eng- 
land, — used this remarkable language : " Of these 
Orders in Council, Napoleon had no right to com- 
plain ; but they were grievously unjust to neutrals; 
and it is now (jenerally allowed^ that they luere contrary 
to the law of natiom, and to our own municipal law ! " 

These liljeral admissions have come too late to 
repair the ruined fortunes or to heal the l^roken hearts 
of the sufferers: they will not recall to life the 
thousands who fell on hard-fought fields, in defence of 
their country's rights. But they do not come too late 
to rel)uke the levity with which it is now intimated, 
that the United States stand at the august l)ar of the 
PubHc Law, not as reasoning men, but as spoiled 
children; not too late to suggest the possibility to 
candid minds, that the next generation may do us 
the like justice, with reference to more recent 
controversies.'"' 

Thus, Fellow-Citizens, I have endeavored, without 
vaini;loi\ hig, with respect to ourselves, or bitterness 

* I.urd CiiiiipbcU's Lives of the Cliaiic-elloi-s, vol. vii. p. 218: Story's Miscellaneous 
Writiiii,^s, ]). '-is:!; IMiilliiiiore's Inteniatioiial Law, vol. iii. ])i). 250, ,'5:59 ; Manning's Com- 
mentary on the Law of Nations, p. .330; AVildman's Institutes of International Law 
vol. ii. pp. 1S3, I'^^S; also, the French publicists, Hautefcuille and Ortolan, under the 

appropriate heads. 



45 



toward others, but in a spirit of candor and patriotism, 
to repel the sinister intimation, that a fatal degeneracy 
is stealing over the country ; and to show that the 
eighty-fourth anniversary finds the United States in 
the fulfilment of the glowing anticipations, with which, 
in the self-same instrument, their Independence was 
inaugurated, and their Union first proclaimed. No 
formal act had as yet bound them together ; no plan 
of confederation had even been proposed. A connnoii 
allegiance embraced them, as parts of one metropolitan 
empire ; but when that tie was sundered, they became 
a group of insulated and feeble communities, not 
politically connected with each other, nor known as 
yet in the family of nations. Driven by a common 
necessity, yearning toward each other with a common 
sympathy of trial and of danger, piercing with wise 
and patriotic foresight into the depths of ages yet to 
come, — led l)y a Divine Counsel, — they clung together 
with more than elective affinity, and declared the 
independence of the United States. North and South, 
great and small, Massachusetts and Virginia, the oldest 
and then the largest ; New York and Pennsylvania, 
unconscious as yet of their destined preponderance, 
but already holding the central balance ; Rhode Island 
and Delaware, raised by the Union to a political 
equality witli their powerful neighbors, joined with 
their sister republics in the august Declaration, for 
themselves and for the rapidly multiplying family of 



46 



States, which they beheld in prophetic vision. This 
great charter of independence was the life of the 
Revolntion; the sword of attack, the panoply of 
defence. Under the consummate guidance of Wash- 
in s^ton, it sustained our flxthers under defeat, and 
guided them to victory. It gave us the alliance with 
France, and her auxiliary armies and navies. It gave 
us the Confederation and the Constitution. With 
successive strides of progress, it has crossed the Al- 
leghanies, the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Missouri ; 
has stretched its living arms almost from the Arctic 
circle to the tepid waters of the Gulf; has belted the 
continent with rising States; has unlocked the rich 
treasuries of the Sierra Madre ; and flung out the 
banners of the Republic to the gentle breezes of the 
Peaceful Sea. Not confined to the continent, the 
power of the Union has convoyed our commerce over 
the broadest oceans to the furthest isles ; has opened 
the gates of the Morning to our friendly intercourse ; 
and — sight unseen before in human history — has, 
from that legendary Cipango, the original object of 
the expedition of Columbus, but which his eyes never 
beheld nor his keels ever touched, brought their 
swarthy princes on friendly embassage, to the western 
shores of the world-dividing Deep. 

Meantime, the gallant Frenchmen, who fought the 
battles of liberty on this continent, carried back the 
generous contagion to their own fair land. Would 



47 



that thoy could have carried with it the moderation 
and the wisdom that tempered our Revolution ! The 
great idea of constitutional reform in England, a 
brighter jewel in her crown than that of which our 
fathers bereft it, is coeval with the successful issue of 
the American struggle. The first appeal of revolution- 
ary Greece, an appeal not made in vain, was for 
American sympathy and (ud. The golden vice-royal- 
ties of Spain on this continent asserted their independ- 
ence in imitation of our example, though sadly want- 
ing our previous training in the school of regulated 
liberty ; and now, at length, the fair '' Niobe of 
Nations," accepting a constitutional monarchy as an 
instalment of the lono:-deferred debt of Freedom, 
sighs through all her liberated States for a represent- 
ative confederation, and claims the title of the Italian 
Washington for her heroic Garibaldi. 

Here then, fellows-citizens, I close where I began ; 
the noble prediction of Adams is fulfilled. The ques- 
tion decided eighty-four years ago in Philadelphia 
2i'as the greatest question ever decided in America ; 
and the event has shown that greater, perhaps, never 
was nor ever will be decided amoni>- men. The sj-reat 
Declaration, with its life-giving principles, has, wdthin 
that interval, extending its influence from the central 
])lains of America to the eternal snows of the Cor- 
dilleras, from the western shores of the Atlantic to 
the furthest East, crossed the land and the sea, and 



48 



circled the u'lobe. Nor let us fear that its force is 
exhausted, for its principles are as broad as humauity, 
as eternal as truth. And if the visions of patriotic 
seers are destined to be fulfilled ; if it is the will of 
Providence that the lands which now sit in darkness 
shall see the day ; that the south and east of Europe 
and the west of Asia shall be regenerated ; and the 
ancient and mysterious regions of the East, the cradle 
of mankind, shall receive back in these latter days 
from the West the rich repayment of the early debt 
of civilization, and rejoice in the cheerful light of 
constitutional freedom, — that light will go forth from 
Independence Hall in Philadelphia ; that lesson of 
constitutional freedom they will learn from this day's 
Declaration. 



DINNEll AT FANEIJIL HALL. 



THE DINNER 



Took place as usual in Faneuil Hall, whither the City Council and its guests 
marched from the Music Hall, upon the conclusion of the services at that place. 
The interior decorations of the hall elicited general admii-ation, for their simplicity 
and good taste ; the temporary aquarium, water fountain, and living flower-beds 
arranged ujion the platform lending an unusual air of frcsliness to the scene. 

Tlie company being seated, a blessing was asked by Rev. Rufus Ellis, D.D., 
ami immediately thereafter the repast prepared for the occasion by Mr. J. B. 
ymith was laid upon the tables, and received undivided attention for nearly an 
hour. 

His Honor Mayor Lincoln then rose and said : — 

FELLOw-riTizK>-s: Again in the progrt's^s of time our groat National Anniversary 
has arrived, and we, the people of Boston, have assembled to participate in its celebra- 
tion. As the ancient Jews went up to the Temple to commemorate their sacred festival, 
so we have thronged this ancient edifice, our hearts filled with tliosn joyous emotions 
which belong to the place and the hour. 

Surely no spot in this vast Republic is more fitting for such a celebration tlian old 
Faneuil Hall. No community lias richer blessings than ours, or has greater cause for 
gratitude to the Fatliers, or is more willing to sustain those principles, and transmit them 
unimpaired to posterity. If we had as.sembled upon some of the great battle-fields of the 
Revolution, (approi)riate it might have been,) our thoughts would have been carried back 
to the scenes of conflict and strife, with the shouts of the victor, and the groans and 
despair of the vanquished; Imt here we are reminded of those great principles which 
were discussed, those great truths of the rights of man which were here enunciated, 
which, carrying conviction to the hearts of the patriots, nerved their arms and inspired 
their courage to seek tlie tented field, and to lay down even their lives in defence of the 
liberties of their country. 

The events which took place in Boston and its vicinity at the commencement of the 
Revolutionary struggle, are as familiar to you as your mother tongue, and it would be 
useless to relate them, — they have already been recorded upon the historic page, and are 
known to the world. But the great principles of liberty which gave them significance 
and importance arc still in our charge. We have a filial duty of gratitude to the past, but 
our noblest ambition should be to keep the present up to that high standard of public 
equality and social privileges which was bequeathed to us bj' our patriotic sires. 

The commemoration of this day, therefore, becomes more than a mere holiday occasion ; 
it suggests serious reflections upon the present state of the Republic, and a most watchful 
scrutiny into the tendencies of the times; party spirit we would banish, partisan warfare 
should be hushed, as we thus mrel togethci' as brothers and i)atriofs at a eominon board. 



■yi 



This is the sentiment which has always characterized the public celebration of this day in 
Boston. The public authorities, commencing in the year 17S3. by the happy choice of Dr. 
John "Warren, the younger brother of the patriot martyr of Bunker Hill, who delivered 
the first oration, hare always endeavored to provide such an ob.*ervance of the occasion 
as the whole people, without distinction of party or sect, could enjoy and actively par- 
ticipate in. 

To-day, then, welcome one and all to this scene of our festivity at Faneuil Hall. "We 
confess to some local pride for the part which our immediate ancestors took in the great 
struggle which we commemorate: yet, as we recollect how nobly they were supported 
by the people of the other colonies, all narrow feelings vanish, — we comprehend our 
country, our whole country, in our love and admiration. Our heart*; expand with the 
growth of the Kepublic, and not only the old tliirteen are embraced in our sympathies, 
but the whole thirty-three States, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific shores, are 
included in our fraternal embrace, and we hail their people as one and indivisible. 

Let us also remember that we not only have a sacred duty to ourselves and our chil- 
dren, to preserve the precious inheritance which has come down to us, but that we are 
acting upon a stage where the whole world are spectators, and that the friends of consti- 
tutional liberty in every nation are beseeching us, in their behalf, to be true to these obli- 
gations which our jiosition imposes. 

A portion of the people of Italy at this very moment are pa.<sing through their great 
conflict with the minions of power, and shall we. at such a time, be recreant to duty, or 
falter in support of those principles ■which have given us a name among the nations? 

It is just seven years this summer since Garibaldi, the great modern Apostle of Liberty, 
visited this hall, then filled with the products of American skill and industry. Is it too 
much to say, that the historic associations of this place, with the exhibition of useful arts 
■which he witnessed, showing the mechanical ingenuity and thrift of a free people, did 
something to stimulate him to rescue his countrymen from thraldom, and give fresh vigor 
to that brain and arm which has recently astonished the world by the .splendor of his 
achievements in behalf of the cause of human rights and constitutional government ? 

But I ■will forbear, fellow-citizens, from trespassing further upon your time. Let me 
close ■with indulging the hope that the festivities of this day, with all its inspiring mem- 
ories of the past, — the jubilant joy and shouts of childhood in the streets, mingled ■with 
the more sober delights of the mature at the hospitable board; the martial pageant, the 
eloquent oration, the prayer to Alniighty God for his blessing. — may bear such a record, 
and exert such an influence upon us. that we all shall be better fitted to discharge our 
duties as citizens, and jealously guard those rights which cost our revolutionary sires so 
many sacrifices to secure. 

The Mayor concluded by offering the following sentiment : — 

The Day ve Celebrate — Honored by the friends of ci\H liberty throughout the world, 
as the anniversary of the grandest event of modern times; — ever to be remembered by a 
free people as the rich fountain of unnumbered blessings to themselves aud their 
children. 

The Chief ^Marshal of the day, 'Mv. Dyer, acting as toastmaster, then read the 
first regular sentiment : — 

The President of the United States. 

To -which Hon. Eichard Frothingliani, Jr., responded. He said : — 

Me. Matok akd (iKXTLEMEx: I thank you for asking me to respond to a sentiment 
in honor of the President of the United States. On such an occasion, on such a day as 
this, the mere mention of flic office will elicit a response from every American heart; and 
hence the name of Wlioe> er the country commissions to be the incumbent will ever be re- 



•)o 



cfived with that respectful response which is worthy of an assembly of patriotic citizens. 
r.ut, sir, in the present case, this great ottice is filled by one who for more than forty years 
has served his country, I am sure all here will agree, with a single regard to its best inter- 
ests, with a private character unstained, and with an ability which has commanded respect 
in the eyes of the world. In the usual course of things, in our country, this venerable 
ollicial is about to pass from the public stage; and when, as 1 believe, the passions and 
l)rejiidices of the day shall have passed away, he will be judged worthy to have occupied 
the place which has been tilled by a line of statesmen so able and illustrious. 

Mr. Mayor, from these special considerations connected with the present incumbent, allow 
me a retrospect as to the past. In the splendid oration we have heard to-day, the distin- 
guished statesman has handled Earl Grey with the same thoroughness and energy and 
faithfulness with which, a few years ago, he handled Lord John Kussell, on vital points of 
international law; and in the .spirit of this triumphant vindication of our country, may 
we not point, as proofs of the successful working of our government, to a succession of 
characters who have been raised to this highest office in the world, such as no European 
state can boast; and when we look back and sec who have commanded the support and 
approbation of the American people, in not only the great office of president, but in other 
offices, —who have filled cabinet places, who have been our diplomatists, who have been 
governors of States at times, — the thought must impress all, that when our country has had 
great and vital work to do, cither in the executive or diplomatic line, it has always had the 
good fortune to have placed in high positions the men whom it seemed Providence had 
raised up specially to do this work, This has been the case from the days of Washington, 
through all the nnitations of party, down to our own time. As our distinguished friend, 
in one head of his oration, dwelt on the question of international law, I thought, as he 
told us, we obtained usually our case, not because the Earl Greys chose to regard us as 
-spoiled children and granted us favors, but because we asked for rights and had to man- 
age our case, in every great question, such men as Jefferson, and Hamilton, and Henry 
Clay, and Daniel Webster, and AVilliam L. Marcy among the dead, and among the liv- 
ing, such men as he to whose eloquence we have listened to-day. This is the reason 
why this country has been great on international law. Thus, when occasions have 
required the presentation of our side of questions involving the principles of American 
institutions, the splendid future and the manifest destiny of our country have been 
pointed out in a manner which the foreigner could understand, and which every Ameri- 
can could appreciate, and which commanded the assent of the patriotic of all parties. 

But, sir, others are here to speak; and in conclusion, I will only exjjress the hope that 
nothing will occur to mar the nationality of the present celebration, so nuich in spiiit like 
what it was in the olden time, when the fathers earliest gathered in this memorable hall to 
provide for the jjojiular celebration of this great day. 1 think that when they first did this, 
when Dr. John Warren delivered the oration to which you have just alluded, — you will 
find in the town records a vote of a legal town meeting, to the efiect that lioston instituted 
this celebration to keep alive the feelings and principles of the American Uevolution. 

1 offer as a sentiment : — 

Our Niitionnl lloliiluij — Fitly commemorated when its observance widens and deepens 
the feelings and princiiiles of the Kevolution. 

Second sentiment : — 

Tke Commonweallli nf J\lnxsar/iitsitts — Jlay flie iiatriotism, love of liberty, and attach- 
ment to the Union, which have ever distinguished our fathers, be also true of us and of 
our descendants. 

In reply to thi.^ .seiitiiiient tlic Cliief Mar.^lial road tlie lollowiny letter IVoni (iov. 
BaidvS : — 



54 



Boston, July 3, ISHO. 

Dkak Siu: I regret that I am unable to participate with you iu the commemoration 
of the Eighty-Fourth Annivei-sary of American Independence. Tlie uninterrupted 
observance of tliis day, by the City of Boston, with appropriate and patriotic ceremonies, 
is a pleasant incident in the history of tlie city and the Commonwealth. If patriotic con- 
siderations alone were not sufKcient to perpetuate this honored custom, the prosperity of 
the city and the happiness of its people would remind them of the sacrifices made, and 
the privileges secured to us, by those who pledged their fortunes, lives, and sacred honor 
for the independence of the nation and the liberties of the people. It is a celebration that 
I trust may be perpetual, and so long as the city of Boston shall stand, that the peojjle 
may annually be jiermitted to honor the day that gave to the world a new interpretation 
and a nobler significance to the ideas of Union and Liberty. 

I am, very respectfully, yours, &c., 

Nathaniel 1'. Banks. 
His Honor F. W. Lincoln, Mayor, &c. 

Third sentimeut : — 

Patriotism — That spark from heaven which in every age and every clime has found 
some bosom ready to be kindled into life and action at its touch. 

lion. John C. Park briefly responded to this toast, and eoncluded by giving- — 

Life, health, and success to Joseph Caribaldi. 

Fonrth suntinient : — 

Garibaldi and his Companions — May the Italian patriots imitate the example of America ; 
may our example always be worthy of their imitation. 

Hon. Thomas Rnssell, Judge of the Superior Court, resj)onded as follows : — 

Mr. Mayor and Fellow-Citizens: I gladly respond to that sentiment to which 
every true American heart instinctively responds. It is meet that we should turn, for a 
moment, from our accomplished and triumphant liberty, and send a greeting to those who 
are struggling so bravely for the freedom of their Italian homes. But what can I say, on 
this theme, to you, who have just been thrilled by the silver tones and golden words of the 
great orator of America, the great orator of the age ? Nothing could have added force 
to his eloquent eulogy upon Garibaldi, except the generous warmth of your eloquent 
applause. 

You, Mr. Mayor, have reminded us of (laribaldi's visit to this spot, seven years ago. 
Here he saw something of the products of our American workshops, — the noblest product 
of all, the American mechanic. Here he learned something of that American Liberty, 
which, it is hardly extravagant to say, was itself the product of our American workshops; 
and, as he entered this hall, the majestic forms of our Revolutionary fathers might have 
bent from the canvas to greet a kindred spirit, —to recognize one of those 



'Men whose iiiishtv tread 



Brink's from the dust the sound of Liberty." 

As we read from time to time, and shuddered as we read, the atrocities of Bourbon 
tyranny in Italy ; the judicial butcheries, which were the mockery of Justice; the linger- 
ing torments, inflicted upon men of whom the world was not worthy : the brutal ho' rors, 
which I cannot even name, — we were almost tempted to lo.se our faitli in an overruling 
Providence. We were ready to cry out, in the language of the Psalmist, " Awake, wliy 
sleepest thou, oh my Ciod ? '' The fit reply to our doubts would have been, " Stand still, 
and see the salvation of God." See even now the aim of Omnipotence laid bare for the 
rescue of Italy; behold the sufferings of her children nuide the instrument of her 
deliverance. 

Believe me, no gioan nor .^igh. wiim;^ from hci-d\ iiig piitiiofs in the foifure-chambers of 



■)o 



Maples or Palermo, was ever breatheJ in vaiu. He spends his lil'e well, who dies for the 
riji;ht, whether in the van of battle or in the gloom of a dungeon. He who watches the 
fall of a sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads, and counts the beatings of our 
thankless hearts, never sull'ered anything to be lost so precious as a drop of martyr blood. 

You remember how Garibaldi, iu the hour of Italy's despair, recruited his forces, — " I 
offer you hunger, thirst, want, wounds, danger, death; whoso will choose these for liberty, 
let him follow me," — words that might create a nation. A little band of heroes accepted 
these terms, but they did not come alone. When he descended from the heights around 
I'alermo, to strike llinl noble blow for freedom, — 

" < >f' which all iMiropi' rings from .side to .sido," 

he was attended not only by a handful of daring adventurers, legions of martyrs 
thronged around his standard. The dead fought for the living. In his armory w'ere " ex - 
ultations, agonies," the groans of tortured patriots, the dying prayers of heroes; all the 
noblest feelings of our nature; indignation against wrong; pity for suffering, admiration 
for courage, — these were the invincible and irresistible artillery, before which the ram- 
parts of despotism were levelled to the ground. 

And when the cruel cowards pointed their cannon against the homes and the hospitals 
of I'alermo, sending death among innocent children and unofleuding women, every shot 
did the errand of freedom. Now, when the tyrant crouches, in turn, before each of the 
great powers of Europe, and begs for aid against his revolted subjects, they answer him, 
even Itussia, even Austria answers him, — " No, by bombarded Palermo, — no, by all your 
foul outrages upon humanity, we leave you to struggle alone with your risen people, alone 
against all the symj)atliies of man." 

Thus once more does the blood of the martyrs become the seed of the Church of Liberty. 
Thus is the cause of her saints judged and avenged. 

Do you ask, what can we do for Italy, except to feel for her? One thing is already 
done. America, first among the nations, has recognized Sardinia, in her diplomatic rela- 
tions, as a power of the first class, — an act which cheered the hopes of every friend of 
constitutional government in Europe. And we may all feel an honest pride that this 
measure was proposed and carried by the Representative of the Faneuil Hall district. 

I make haste to add, that he was seconded by every representative from every section ; 
from every party, and from every section of every party. 

One greater thing the American people can do for the friends of liberty in Italy and in 
Europe. We can daily set before them the example of a republic not only free but just: 
true to high motives, regardful of others" rights, jealous of its honor, radical against all 
abuses, conservative of every noble principle, — harmonious, progressive, united. 

Each year of such national life would strike a blow upon the chains of every bondman 
in Europe. 

And now, before we leave Faneuil Hall, let us give one thought, one grateful tear, one 
throb of our hearts, to the dead who h.we died for freedom. 

Fifth sentiment : — 

T/ie Orator of the Day — To every American, Everett and eloquence are glowing 
synonyms. 

The entire company rose and j^^reeted ]\Ir. Everett with nine cheers. After 
music by the hand, he a(hlresse(l the com[)any as follows : — 

Mr. Mayor and Fellow-Citizens: I pray you to accept my warmest thanks for 
this most flattering reception. 1 cannot make you a speech; I have left my voice in yonder 
hall, and if some not ungrateful impression from it still lingers in your ears, as you permit 
me to hope, be pleased to accept that, in lieu of a more formal address, for which at present 
I am too much exhausted. 



50 



I will say, however, that I feel grateful to you, Mr. Mayor and fellow-citizensi, for allow- 
ing me to .speak to you on this great anniversary. It is what I have never done before. I 
have, on several former occasions, been called upon to deliver orations on the Fourtli of 
July in other places; but though once before invited to do it in Boston, I was obliged to 
decline, and this is the first time that it has been my good fortune to perform the pleasing, 
and, as I deem it, not unimportant duty, in our beloved Boston. I shall never, in all 
human probability, deliver another oration on the Fourth of July, and in discharging 
that duty for the first and last time before you, my honored and partial fellow-citizens, I 
rejoice to have had it in my power to bear my humble testimony to the vitality of the prin- 
ciples of the great Declaration, and to the success which, in the experience of eighty-four 
years, has crowned the labors of our fathers who formed and adopted it. 

Boston, Mr. Mayor and fellow-citizens, has never allowed the day to pass unnoticed : I 
trust she will never do so. I feel that it is good to be here. I feel that we owe it to our 
fathers, nay, that we owe it to ourselves, to keep alive the associations of the day, by these 
rational and festive observances. I never come into this consecrated hall, without carrying 
away from it some thoughts and emotions, some recollections of the great men who have 
here imparted their lessons of patriotism and wisdom, which guide and strengthen me 
for the duties of life. The moral sentiments, Mr. Mayor, not armies and navies, are the 
weapons by which the battles of humanity are fought, and her victories won ; and this 
hall is one of the chief armories where those weapons are stored up. The lessons we have 
learned from those on whose lips we have so often hung with rapture, may not find their 
application the next day, the next week, the next year. The ordinary duties of life furnish 
little scope for the great, throbbing impulses of a lofty patriotism. They may be buried for 
a while under the cares of life, but when the crisis arises to call them forth, they will burst 
into action. This miniature fountain, now bubbling up on the table before us, and scatter- 
ing its dewy freshness over the flowers which surround its margin, derives its waters from 
the distant lake. They have flowed for miles, unseen, unheard, through darksome conduits 
and devious channels, alike beneath the green sod and the bare gravel. They have wound 
their way far underground beneath ringing pavements and through narrow streets, and 
here at length they are gushing up in this festal hall, to pay nature's sparkling homage to 
that immortal name. [The name of Washington was inscribed on the gallery in front of 
the fountain at the Mayor's table.] 

Mr. Mayor, there is a mighty power in this place on a day, an occasion like this. Do you 
suppose that it was to no pui^ose that Joseph Garibaldi visited Faneuil Hall, (and by the 
way, I think, whatever may be said of the King of Egypt, " who knew not Joseph,'''' that 
this reproach, after what we have heard from yourself and the gentlemen who have pre- 
ceded me, will not lie against the people of Boston this day, — they do know him,) — I say, 
sir, when he visited this neighborhood and this hall, seven years ago, as you have told us, 
then a sojourner, gaining his honest daily bread by hard daily labor, did he carry away no 
lesson from Faneuil Hall? Has he not thought of the stirring words here uttered, while 
rousing his countrymen to resistance? As he has drawn his entrenchments around I'aler- 
mo, has he not thought of those thrown np on Dorchester Heights? While the Neapolitan 
fleet is battering the palaces of the fated city, has he forgotten the undaunted spirit 
breathed in Washington's letter to Congi-css, written on the day when a hundred and 
thirty-four British transports landed their twenty-five thousand troops on Staten Island, 
while he had scarce a third of that number of efhcient men and no ships to oppose them; 
and do you suppose he has not remembered that on that day the resolution of Independ- 
ence was adopted? 

Yes, sir, in our humble sphere, if in time to come the voice of the country shall call us 
to assert her rights and defend her dear-bought liberties, we shall do it with credit to our- 
selves, only in proportion as we are faithful to the associations of this day and the lessons 
w(^ have learned in this hall. 

Again, fellow-citizens. I pray you to accept my heartfelt thanks for this most cordial 
welcome 



•)( 



Sixth scntinicnl : — 

TIti: derail of llif llfvnlittinn — What tlioy thou<jht tliey said, and what they said they did. 
Tliey did not clioose to learn tlie dnty of si]en(-e, and tliey had not time to' learn tlie duty 
of i0])O!-e. 

licv. Kilwanl K. Halt' respoiuli'das foIli)Ws : — 

lie was always ,<rlad to liear such recoi^'uition, which he believed was the general sense of 
thoughtful men, of the service of any body of the clergy, wlio in expounding the truth, 
were willing to take their illustrations from tlie life of their own time, and to show the 
bearings of divine truth on the social or personal duties of their own times. It was not 
tlie fortune of the Hevolutionary clergy more than of any other body of clergymen to 
leave a great many names widely distinguished in later times. Their reward was not in 
the praise of history, — their fame was not on the votive canvas. Among the portraits of 
patriots preserved in that hall, there was none of any of the clergy of the Revolution,— 
indeed the only clergyman whose features were portraye<l there was the clergyman who 
had dcliveied this day's oration, standing in the group of those who listened to the words 
" Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.'" The notoriety of history 
was not the reward which the Itevolutionary clergy sought. But tliey had all they did 
*eek: — the eternal inlluenee of men who had fearlessly attempted to bring the truth of 
God to bear on all the relations, social or personal, of the times in which they lived. 

There can hardly be a child in this land to-day, Mr. Mayor, {3Ir. Hale continued,) who 
docs not think he knows what "Independence Day " means. If it is only independence 
from Mr. Chief of Police's more piercing gaze, the very boy who is firing crackers under 
the windows thinks he lias caught its interpretation. Hut I remember the story of an old 
man in the city of New London, who said that when, in 1775, he held his father's hand, 
listening to the farewell speech of a young lieutenant of one of the Connecticut regiments, 

— one Nathan Hale, — as he took leave of his townsmen, and marched for the army at 
Cambridge, he heard the word " Independence '' from the lips of that young ofticer for the 
first time in liis life. The boy whispered to his fiither to ask what '■ Independence " meant. 

— so new was the word, even then, to the general ear. In fact, that word had not then 
been in the language lor man)' generations. For it was to the independent clergy of the 
seventeenth century that the language owed the word. The idea, of course, of independ- 
ence, is in the Bible. lUit the word is not in the English version of the Bible. It is not 
in the whole range of the wondrous vocabulary of fShakspeare. It does not appear any- 
where in English, till the men who planted Kew England and republicanized old England 
wanted a word to express the independence of the churches which they were founding. 
Those men gave the language the word "independent," and its kindred words, — and 
those were the men who at the same time were teaching the state — which did not know 
what it was learning — the idea of independence. The word was an ecclesiastical word 
first. The men who planted the Independent Churches of England and of New England 
were the men who through that century were teaching both countries the idea, as they 
taught them the very word, which makes the centre of the celebration of this day. Yet 
this day every church claims to be an Independent Church, — however united to its sister 
churches. From the lessons of such men as those were, as history unfolded, had the peo- 
ple of these States learned what the word independence meant, — had they caught the prin- 
ciples under which on the same day they proclaimed these States at once independent and 
united'. 

Scveiitli sentiment: — 

The Press — The medium of intelligence to the masses, and the mirror of every day lite 

— May its retlections always be truthful. 

Hon. (jforiie I>iiut, one of the editors of the Boston Courier, resj)oniled as 
toHows : — 



58 



Mr. Mayoii and Fellow-Citizens: You open to me a very wide subject indeed; but 
1 Khali not deem it my part here to enlarge upon a topic so fertile of thought aud associa- 
tion. I am proud to be selected as tlie representative, upon this occasion, of this great 
instrument of knowledge and civilization, — the guardian of freedom, the discoverer of 
truth, the promoter of right, the suppressor of wrong. For, though the newspaper press, 
to which I presume your sentiment more especially alludes, may certainly become per- 
verted in part to unworthy ends, and so far vicious and mischievous, yet it is impossible 
tliat error should long aud permanently prevail, when it is compared with its opposite in 
fair and open discussion. For in truth itself there is that inlierent virtue, that it lives as a 
part of the source of life, — that it is therefore indestructible, and thus immortal and eter- 
nal; — and though its face may be often veiled by the cloud and the storm, yet they soon 
pass by, and, like tlie god of day, it is still seen in the heavens, serene, resplendent, and 
beneficent, without a stain upon its glory, or a single beam of its native light withdrawn. 

For, dilleriug altogether from a recent public speaker, on this subject, I both tliiuk and 
feel that error is partial, but truth permanent and perpetual. Were it not so, falsehood 
would long ago have gained the entire victory and become universal, — men would be bar- 
barians and society impossible. But it is not so, — for, while one exploded falsehood after 
another has gone to oblivion, the same moral sentiment which touched the heart of the 
first man, sinks as deeply into the convictions of to-day as it did six thousand years ago. 

But let me say, in a word or two only, how vast a change has been wrought in social 
life during the present century by that great disseminator of light and knowledge, the 
newspaper press. Human wrong has by no means ceased, aud in the advancement of 
society the ingenuity of vice undoubtedly strives to keep pace with the intelligence and 
power of virtue. And yet, what casual glance does not show that, though oppression and 
terror still cling to the habitations of cruelty, — yet the echoes of one voice, the concen- 
trated remonstrance of the humaner and more enlightened sentiment of the world, now 
more than ever before, do penetrate the darkest of the dark places of the earth, and make 
the thrones of force and fraud now and forever insecure. 

Without the I'ress, then, I say, sir, none of those progressive revolutions, the signs, I 
trust, of a far nobler civil .state of man in the future, could have been brought about. And 
I need not say, that, at this moment, the two kindred nations of the world, the most con- 
spicuously i)rominent in the march of civilization, — the one in the maturity of its powers 
and the other in the ripening promise of a dominion never before beheld by mortal eyes, — 
are substantially the only two which can boast of a free press. Sure I am, that in our own 
country, and especially in this New England, which we hold so justly dear, the influence 
of this irresistible means of social improvement can be distinctly traced, as definitely as 
the inellaceable marks of every forward step. There is no portion of the world which 
bears any comparison with New England in the number and variety of its public journals. 
We have gained this advantage chiefly during the last half century. There can be no 
question that an astonishing advance has been made by us, during that last half century, 
in the diffusion of knowledge, and in general cultivation and refinement. And though I 
fear we are far from perfect, — perhaps not half so near perfection as we are sometimes in- 
clined to boast, to say nothing of growing vices, evils, and errors, and of the prevalence of 
opinions which T should be glad to see changed, — yet, after all, upon any fixir comparison 
with an equal population, I may be excused in this assembly for saying, that I deem New 
England the most fortunate and favored spot upon the face of the globe. 

But it is as the ready and efhcient means of intercommunication, in a country so vast as 
our own, and of keeping unbroken the electric chain of patriotic sentiment and feeling, 
that the press is chiefly valuable to us. So that from the heart of one people may be poured 
out a common stream of devotion to surround tiie holy altar of freedom, — and that thus 
the prosperity and glory of the country may be made perpetual, and thus the benign end. 
of Providence may be answered, and the nations of the earth be induced to follow in the 
footstej)s of a Kcpublican Commonwealth; to become, let us hope, as wise and noble as it 
is free, — it is tor this generous ministration that the free press of a free country should be 
honored and cherished by its citizens. In correspondence with these views, I beg to oiler 
this sentiment: — 



.■)!) 



The Union of the •States — Iiifondod by our fiitliers no loss as a safoguanl of tliuir own 
liberties, than as an exaniplo and invitation to the world. God bless it and protect it, 
tliroiigli all generations of mankind. 

Eighth scntiiuc'iit : — 

Our Representatives in Congress — Conscientiously tenacious of the just claims of their 
own constituents, they as scrupulously respect the rights guaranteed to their fellow-citizens 
elsewhere. 

Hon. Alexander II. Ilife, nicniber of Congress, resi)onded us follows : — 

Nothing could be more agreeable to mo, IMr. Mayor, than to return at this festive season 
from a community of strangers to the familiar scenes and the cordial hospitality of a 
New England home, — nothing more delightful than to exchange the narrowness of sec- 
tional strife, for the liberal sentiment of this place and this occasion, — nothing more 
refreshing than to forget the rancor of partisan invective while listening to songs of 
innocent children, or to the music of that eloquence from which the imagination takes us, 
by easy transit, to the melody of the morning stars. Little need be added, much cannot 
be, to what has already been uttered here and elsewhere, to-day; but the sentiment which 
lias just been read, alludes, if I mi.stake not, to the diversity of duties which devolve upon 
a representative in Congress, — the duties which he owes to his immediate constituents, 
and those which belong' to the people of a common country. And they may indeed esteem 
it i)raise, if such there be, who can with justice appropriate to themselves the language of 
that sentiment ; for no man enlisted in any department of the public service, need ask 
more of reward lor his successful endeavors, nor more of solace for his failures and dis- 
appointments, than the recognition of his fidelity to his constituents, and to his country. 
Hut, sir, this twofold relation is common as well to every citizen as to the members 
of the National Government; and that is but a limited and dwarfish patriotism, 
which, while careful of interests specially its own, neglects those which concern 
the honor or the welfare of the nation at large. I am reminded that it was the 
American Congress of 1776, which sent forth that immortal Declaration of Independence 
to which we have again listened to-day, and the anniversary of whose promulgation has 
been so uniformly celebrated, under municipal authority, by the people of Boston, for 
nearly fourscore years. Thus, indeed, will it always be celebrated, while this people cher- 
ish the spirit and emulate the deeds of their ancestors. That Declaration has revived the 
hope and spread abroad the love of liberty throughout the world. It was most belitting, 
therefore, that the same American Congress from which it emanated, still true to the 
sentiment of national as well as of popular freedom, should, in 1860, be the first of the 
great powers of the earth, as has already been indicated, to recognize the independence of 
the bravest and nio.st enlightened of the Italian states. And while it has always been the 
source of pride an<l satisfaction that, years ago, Boston, through the patriotism of a por- 
tion of her people, crowned the imperial fortress of Sardinia with a Paixan gun, to assert 
and to proclaim its independence, it is gratifying, also, that the initiatory measures for the 
acknowledgment of that independence should have been made by one of the represent- 
atives in Congress from the same city. On this memorable day, Mr. Mayor, when, more 
than upon any other, we recall the incidents of the early struggle for our own independ- 
ence, and commemorate the heroic deeds of those by whom it was achieved, we are wont 
to cast our thoughts to the future in solicitude for tlu^ continued unity and peace of the 
country. 

During three fourths of a century, the grand experiment has been tested; the govern- 
ment has survived the vicissitudes incident to its complex organization, to the rapid 
increase of its territory, the mulliplication of .States, and the flowing tide of its mixed 
l)Opulation; till what was originally a small people, occu])ying a narrow belt upon the 
Atlantic, has become a mighty nation, hclil only by the utmost limits of the continent. 
.Ml the conflicts of interest have failed to destroy its unify, the competition of the world 



IK) 



besides, has not checked its progress. Its authority to-day is not surpassed by the sfejitros 
of kings; its stability is tirnier than thrones; let us do our part to render its renown more 
lasting. 

Ninth sentiment : — 

The most liberal culture of all classes in the community the best safeguard, under God. 
for our liberties. 

President Felton, of" Harvard College responded. He said: — 

Mr. Mayou and Gentlemen: I came to town this morning, with no purpose of mak- 
ing a speech. I came in accordance with a rule which 1 adoi)ted nearly forty years ago, 
to hear Mr. Everett whenever it was possible for me to do so. J?ut you have connected 
the name of Harvard with a noble sentiment, as the representative of that high culture the 
importance of which the .sentiment recognizes. Whenever and wherever the name of 
Harvard University is thus honorably mentioned, I shall not hesitate to resijoud. whether 
piepared or unprepared. 

Sir, Harvard is not unworthy of Ijeing remembered in the midst of the glorious associa- 
tions of Faneuil Hall. It is not unworthy of mention, in the presence of that 
name, — the greatest name in the history of man. It is not unworthy of mention in the 
presence of the pictured form of the illustrious departed, whose voice has so often filled 
these arches with his mighty elo<iuence. 

Harvard University was founded by our ruritan ancestors coevally with the foundation 
of the Commonwealth. It has kept pace with the fortunes of their descendants, growing 
with their growth and strengthening with their strength. Our ancestors, in their strug- 
gle with the Evil l'rincii)le, knew well the importance of human learning; and they 
built the college, that knowledge and letters might not die out in the wilderness. 
With the increasing demands of society for wider culture of science and letters, the 
means of the college have been enlarged. Between this City of Boston, and the Univer- 
sity, a close and mutually beneficial relation has been constantly maintained. The wealth 
of Boston has nobly resijonded to the numerous appeals we have made; and the favor 
has been re(]uited b_v .sending forth annuall)' classes of young men, with their intellectual 
faculties trained, their moral natures cultivated, to do the work which eacli generation 
calls upon its educated men to perform. They are trained, also, to ohci/ the lairs: and in 
an age of wilful claims to disregard the law, and to assert the pretensions of unlimited 
self-assertion, this I hold to be one of the most important parts of an enlightened system 
of public education. He who has learned to obey, will be better fitted to rule. 

Mr. Mayor, Harvard University is not wanting in patriotic memories. We cannot 
claim the author of the (ireat Declaration as one of our graduates; but the President of 
the illustrious assembly that adopted it was a graduate of Harvard, and for many years 
a high ofiicer in the institution ; and he whose eloquence, when the debate came on that 
involved the fortunes of ages and nations yet to come, swept all before it, and won for him 
the proud name of the Colossus of Independence, was a son of Harvard. Other distin- 
guished names on the list of signers, belong to us. During the siege of Boston, the col- 
lege l)uildings were surrendered to the soldiers of tlie American army for barracks: the 
liouse i)f the Tresident was occupied by the oflicers; Washington assumed the com- 
mand, and first drew his sword in the war of Indei)endence, under the shadows of the 
ancient halls, and his head-cjuarters were assigned in the house now occuj)ied by the great 
Am<riean Poet, — for many years one of the brightest ornaments of the college, — Sir. 
Longfellow, whose woi'ks are read wherever theEnglish language is understood. And just 
at that most crilieal moment, when the students were compelled to retreat to Concord. — 
auDlbcr bistiiricnl name, — and to hold their literary exercises in thr chureli of that 
ancient town, — tlie anthoritii-s of the University, assembled at Wafertown, ciinl'crred on 
the ilhisdious chief the highest academic honors. Again, when the great conflict was 
(i\ir, ;nid Washington was seated in the cliair of state, he was welcomed to the Halls of 
Ihn'vard \\i1hi'\ery niaiU nf respict and \ I'lici alion. 



(U 



But, Mr. Mayor, I must not be tempted into making a speech by the fruitful theme of 
the service Harvard has rendere<l in every afie to the country. I cannot lielp, liowever, 
adding tliat our University may claim some part of the honor which Mr. Everett's elo- 
quent and unanswerable vindication of our country has conferred upon this day. Old 
Harvard may say to him, as Mantc Cradoch said to Hope Leslie, in Miss Sedgwick's 
charming novel, " Did I not teach him tlie tongues?" His unequalled genius, which 
from its earliest dawn has continued to increase in brilliancy to the present moment, 
received its first recognition, and its youthful honors, I'rom Harvard Universitj-. 

I will not occupy more of your time. Allow me to proi)ose a toast in accordance with 
the spirit of the sentiment with which you have connected the name of Harvard. 

Science, letters, law, and religion, the main pillars of a free Commonwealth. 

Tenth sentiment : — 

The Empires of China and Japan — 1 four commercial and diplomatic intercourse with 
these " twin sisters" of the Orient be that of the most favored nations, this is chietiy due 
to the estimable private and public character of the able negotiators we have sent them 
as our representatives. 

The Hon. Peter I'arker, hite Minister to Cliina, responded, as follows : — 

Mr. Mayor axi> Feli>ow'-Citizi;ns: I find myself for the lir>t time within the walls 
of Faneuil Hall, and could I have chosen the occasion, I could not have selected one of 
greater interest. The object of the Anniversary we this day celebrate has been happily 
expressed by your poet to be, to 

" Cliaiit asain the deathless story, 
Light another vestal tire." 

Another vestal fire has this day been lighted, [referring to the Oration,] and I trust the 
future will reveal that the story of our Freedom is indeed deathless, and shall yet be sung 
by every land. 

I did not anticipate being called upon for a speech, and I am not insensible to the pre- 
sumption of attempting it in this hall, where a Warren, Adams, Webster, Choate, 
Everett, and Felton have poured forth their eloquence; but, while I bow to their intellect 
and eloquence, as respects lore of count ri/. and admiration of patriotic sentiment, I claim 
these are not, and cannot be, dearer to any heart than to the one that beats within this 
breast. 

[Indorsing the remaik of the Hon. .1. ('. Park, that God raises u]) men for si)ecial 
emergencies.] The venerable elm of three centuries is being broken down by the hand 
of time, but from the same soil, other elms are coming forth whose roots will strike as 
deep, and their overshadowing branches will, iu time, equal those of the old elm. 
Warren, Adams, Webster, and Choate, have passed away, but I believe the .same gracious 
Being, who gave us them, can and will raise up others iu their stead, as the exigencies of 
the country shall recjuire. 

In responding to the sentiment befon^ you, I have great pleasure in bcaringtestimony to 
the wisdom, moderation, and justice, which characterized the diplomacy of my predeces- 
sors and successors in the office of minister of the United States to the government of 
China. In doing so, J cannot refrain from referring particularly to my highly esteemed 
friend, the beloved brother of the orator of the day, with whom tt was my honor and 
happine.s.s to be associated. In his premature death, not only his country, but China, 
also, sustained an irreparable l<jss. Had it i)leased an all-wise I'rovidence to have 
restored the health, and jjrescrved the life, of the late Hon. Alexander H. Everett, it is 
impossible now to say what had been the result of his influence upon China, and upon 
the relations subsisting between that country and the I'nifed States. 

In the extreme East, where a large portion of my life has been spent, the doctrine of 



62 



the divine rif/ht of Icinr/s, lias been claimed and exjiouiided as in no other part of the 
world. His majesty, the Emperor of China, the late Taou Kwang, in his letter, in reply 
to one addressed him by President Tyler, and borne to China by the Hon. Caleb Gushing, 
in 1844, claimed to have received '• the mandate of Heaven to rule the empire." The 
Chinese character, translated " to rule,"' from its etymology or composition, conveys 
to the Chinese mind something more than to rule. It conveys the figurative idea of 
holding the reins of government, as the charioteer guides his steeds. But startling as 
the statement may appear, to a certain extent, the spirit of Republicanism is as rife in 
China as in America. An intelligent and patriotic Chinese scholar once remarked to me, 
[ Ta Whang Shang ijit, pih sing, fe she pifi Sing iju Ta Whang Shang.] " The Empercrr 
for the people, not the people for the Emperor,'''' and the obligation of the people to con- 
form to certain articles of the United States treaty was ignored on the ground that the 
imperial ratification of it was made without consulting them. 

When in 1837 I went in the bay of Yeddo, and the vessel in which I was, [the 
Morrison, returning to their homes feven shipwrecked Japanese,] for six hours, and sub- 
sequently in the southern principality of Satzuma, again for eighteen hours, was ex- 
posed to the Japanese shot, could I have then known that in 1860 I should be living and 
be present at the landing in Washington of a friendly embassy from the government of 
Japan to that of the United States, I could have asked for nothing more. But this is 
now history. In this contrast we have an illustration of the progress of liberal ideas 
going forward in the East, confirmatory of the sentiment of my Chinese friend, " the 
Emperor for the people, — not the people for the Emperor." 

Eleventh and last sentiment : — 

The signers of the Declaration of Independence — Their best monument is the history of 
their country, whose greatness and prosperity have resulted, in a large measure, from the 
sentiments and principles which they adopted for its political creed. 

Mr. Samuel 11. Eandall, the reader of the Declaration, responded as follows : — 

Me. Mayor and Fellow-Citizens : The annual recurrence of the Anniversary of 
this sacred day, furnishes a happy occasion to revive and reinvigorate the slumbering 
patriotism of the country. 

The swelling tide of our national prosperity, the boundless wealth of our resources, 
and the imperial promise of our future destiny, have almost obliterated from our minds, 
and driven from our thoughts, the remembrance of those early struggles, which laid the 
strong, deep, and sure foundation of all this marvellous and magnificent success. 
Eighty-lour years ago, this day, a band of patriots in convention assembled, stimulated 
and nerved by a sense of long, weary, and heartless oppression, with every indication of 
perpetual absolute despotism and tyranny, to be exercised over them, and their country- 
men, should they continue to submit, had the firmness and courage to throw off the 
shackles of slavery and shame, in obedience to their views of certain principles of right 
and to declare that " these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and inde- 
pendent States." 

The Declaration of Independence, thus made, was sustained by a desperate, yet zealous 
and devoted struggle. The God of battles smiled projjitiously on the arms of the yeoman 
soldiery of the Revolution, and brought the oppressed colonies out from a state of 
bondage, into the glorious existence of a nation of freemen. 

The existence of our nation and of our national independence, of the possession and 
enjoyment of the priceless blessings of liberty, being mainly, if not wholly, due to the 
promulgation of llie Declaration of Jndeiicndence by the Colonial Convention, it is 
fitting and proper, Hi;il as <;ich siicc('e<liiig year rolls round, and the Anniversary of the 
Kation's birthday ihiwns upon us, we slnuild cclcbiatc it in a becoming manner, and 
that those means shcuild lie resorted to which will remind us from wliat causes our 
nation had its being, who was the aullior of tho.se causes, what was the issue at 



stiiko, wliat the stru<!;{;le and wliat tlie triumph, — lo kindle onr patriotism, lostcr our 
lt)V(' of country, and devotion to tliat Union for whicli so much toil, blood, and trcasuii' 
were expended by tlie revolutionary patriots of tlie Republic to accomplish. 

It is well, too. that on this day, at least, we sliould bless the eflbrts oftlie noble martyrs 
of the Uevolution, and liallow the memories of those patriots, who. alterthe Constitution 
was adojited, so skilfully, faithfully, and successfully guided the young Republic onward 
in its immortal mission. 

And well would it bt' lor our people, if tliey should pause and reflect, whether they are 
realizing to-day, in this ejioch of our country's historj', the full blessings and enjoyment 
of the mighty and sublime jjniiciples of the Declaration : Whether all that the efforts and 
.success of the fathers promised us, is, by us, their children, being enjoyed, — 1 speak not 
now as a party man, for to-day i.s sacred to a commou love, but of a truth which exists 
independent of party. 

The struggle, eighty-four years ago, was a struggle between Iiulepeiidencc and Slavery. 
The American people supposed that, when the sliackles imposed on them by George the 
Third, the ignoble tyrant, and the despot fool, had been thrown off, the star of 
liberty, had risen, with healing ou its wings, which was, thenceforward, to shine onbf 
as the beacon light of the Reiniblic. Happy were the people in such a case; yea, blessed 
were the people to have had this for their hope, — but still, to-day the same struggle goes 
ou, in these Free and Independent States, between opposing forces and contending prin- 
ciples; — between Liberty, the offspring of God; and Slavery, the offspring of the Devil. 
Need we not another assemblage of a baud of patriots? Need we not another Declaration ? 
Need we not another Revolution, — of patriots against tyrants; and will there not soon 
be another glorious triumiih .' 

Have not nearly «// the wrongs and oppressions so truly charged against George the 
Third and his mini.stry, in the Declaration, as committed against the American Colonies, 
been inflicted by modern administrations, in our country, upon territories that stand in 
the same relation to our nation that the Colonies did to Great Britain? Let the intelli- 
gence, the wisdom, the patriotism of the age, bear witness. 

But, Ciod be praised, this is a Union day, a day of national life. And altliougli thei^at- 
riot may have occasional fears that all is not well, yet the anthems our voices raise fin's 
day shall be fragrant with .springing hopes of the triumphs of liberty. 

Our land, the blest >_Mrden of liberty's tree, 

It has been and shall >i<- 1 be, the land of the free. 

Let us then believe, in our heart of hearts, that our country's glorious desstiny is to be 
n^alized ; that the brilliant promise of its youth is to be crowned by an old age of glory. 
And that succeeding generations, as they celebrate the anniversaries of this day, will 
triumph in the full realization of those eternal princi])les of Truth, Liberty, and .lustice, 
of which the bow of promise was witnessed by our fathers, and which, from its distant 
gleaming in the heavens, it may be permitted to our generation to enjoy. May the 
blessed hour of the shining of that bow come quickly to our hopes, that our Union may 
be in truth, as it is in name, a Union of Free and Independent States. 

As a sentiment, I would propose : — 

The Deelaraf ion of Independence — Bray the conceptions of this almost divine instru- 
ment, as entertained by the fathers of the Keiniblic, be realized in our own and all 
succeeding generations. 



C O R U E S V U N L) E X V E 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Aiiiuiii: the IcttciN irccivod hy His Honor the Mayor, in reply to invitations to 
|)ariicii>at(' in tlu' ccU'lu-ation, wen.' the followiiif;- : — 

LETTKi: KllOM (UlARLEfl SUMNElt. 

Washington. July ], 18(50. 

D'fir Sir : I liave btun liouored by your invitation to tlie approaching lustival, when the 
City of Hoston will repeat its annual vows to the support of our Declaration of Independ- 
ence. ( )ther en>jaj;cnients will keep nic away ; but be assured, my dear .sir, that present, or 
absent, I shall unite in tliese vows. 

Henry (May, in the noblest utterance, perhaps, that ever fell from his lips, said that the 
men who would re|n'(!S.'< all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, must not only 
blow out the moral lijihts around us, but must go back to the era of our Independence, and 
nui/zle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return. He saw, of course, the luitural 
simple meaning of that iS'ational Act, — .-^o plain on its face that all who read or who hear 
nmst understand, and he little thoti;;ht that the attempt would be nnide so soon to muzzli' 
the Declaration itself. 

The open denial of the life-^ivin.^ ]irineiple of the Declaration of Independence, now 
unblushingly made, in stultilication of the Fathers of the Republic, renders it important 
that our annual celebration should be souu-thing more than a day of ceremony. The time 
has come when the Fathers must be vindicated. It must be shown that they were intelli- 
gent and honest patriots, who knew what the occasion required, and who meant i)recisely 
what they said; who, when announcing " self-evident truths,'" as thejustilication of Inde- 
pendence, were not guilty of a nuire verbal flourish, and who, when solemnly claiming 
natural rights for ALi, men, did not degrade themselves to the hypocrisy of meaning nat- 
ural rights for a particular class or caste only, fhe authors of the Declaration were not 
idiots or hypocrites. 

Were I able to take part in our annual celebration, I should I)e glad to speak on this 
theme, so germane to the occasion that it seems almost to exclude all other themes. I hope 
that I do not go too far if I inclose a sentiment in hoinu' of the day. Accept my thanks 
for the courtesy vou have done me. ami believe me. my dear sir, with nuich respect your 
faithful servant and fellow-citiztn, « 11 AKLK.S SUMXKK. 

To the Hon. F. W. ],inci>i..n, .Mayor, etc. 

Tlie Declaration nf Inrlcin ii'/eme — lUst eelebratc(l by a laithful adherence to its silf-tviilfnt 
Iriitlis. and by constant eflbrts to reluler them everywhere of jiractical force, — until nnlnml 
rights shall become legal rights, and nil men shall be admitted to be eiiual before the laws, 
as they are equal before (jod 



6<S 



LETTER FUOSI KX-PRESIII ENT TYLER. 

Shkhwood FoiiEST, June 26, 18fi0. 

Gentle7nen: Your iiivitatiou to attiiiil the celebration of the eighty-fourth anniversary 
of American Independence, under the auspices of the ("ity Council of Boston, has been 
duly received. Other engagements, which I am not at liberty to forego, will prevent my 
acceptance. 

I shall, however, be permitted to express my gratilication at this patriotic demoiistiation 
by the " solid men of Boston," through their public councils, which is so well calculated 
to revive past glorious memories, when responsive echoes were given by Faneuil Hall and 
the Old Capitol at Williamsburg. Now that a deep veneration and attachment to the 
Constitution, and necessarily to the Union, seems no longer to exist with many; when the 
laws are despised, and their enforcement prevented by the interference of lawless mobs; 
when, in full knowledge of these proceedings, the State governments manifest not only 
entire indifference to tl)is state of things, but give them virtually countenance and encour- 
agement, by legislative enactments falling very little short of positive nullilication of the acts 
of Congress, whether passed by the conjoint action of the two houses, or emanating from 
either in the inforcement of its riglitful authority; when, in short, eli'orts are continually 
made to sever the bonds which bind the States together, which have so far succeeded as to 
visit the communion table, around which all should assemble in peace and brotherly love, 
with anger and schism : and at a time when the (luestion of the breaking asunder the bonds 
of the Union (and its ligaments, I fear, are becoming daily more and more a rope of sand) 
is made atopic of discussion in every family circle; at such a time, and under such circum- 
stances, it is a source of unfeigned gratification to me, that the City Council of Boston have 
resolved to celebrate the natal day of the great Republic after the imposing manner which 
it proposes. My earnest prayer is that the result may correspond with the brightest hopes 
and warmest feelings of the lover of our country, and its grand and noble institutions. 
I have the honor to be, gentlemen, 

Respectfully and truly youis. 

.JOHN TYLKK. 

Freuekick W. Lincoln, .li:., and others. 



LETTER KIlo.M MAYOR SAUNDEHP, OF LAWI5ENCE. 

Lawrenck, July 2, 1860 
Gfiitlemen : I desire to thank you for the invitation to join with you in the celebration of 
the s4th Anniversary of our National Independence. An engagement of the City Govern- 
ment of Lawrence to celebrate the day as the guests of the City of Lowell, will prevent my 
acceptance of your invitation, which, under other circumstances, I would gladly have 
availed myself of The many obligations which the City of Lawrence owes to your City 
will ever be remembered and appreciated. Permit me to offer the following sentiment: 

Boston — Celebrated for its early historical associations; prominent amongst the cities of 
America in all that pertains to the arts and sciences; foremost in the works of philanthro- 
yjy : may her future success equal her present liberality. 

With the highest respect, I am your obedient friend and servant, 

DANIEL SAUNDERS. Ju. 
lion. Frederick W. Lincoln, Jr., and others. Committee. Boston. 



LIOTTKR FROM TllOMAS H. CUKTI8. 

Mt. Vernon Street, July 2, ISiiO. 
Sir: Last year " The (ilnnous lnurth" was celebrated by speech, feast, and song, on 
board the Royal Mail Steamei' Eiim/'ii. and an elegant biUKiuet was ordered by the gallant 



GO 



('oiiivuiindcr. in lidiior ol' tlie occasicui. The liualth of the Queen and the President was 
drank with cheers. 

I would propose now. 

Tkehealih of John Leiicu, Ksi^. — In whom are blended the fortitude of the seanum and 
the suavity of the gentleman. 

Kespectf'uDj' otVercd hy your obedient servant, 

THOMAS 15. CURTIS. 
His Honor F W. I.incoln. (chairman, &u.. Jfcc. 



EVENT>s OF THE CELEBRATION 



EVENTS OE THE ( ELEBKAITON. 



The Eighty-Fourtli Anniversary of the Declnratiou of AincTicau ln(lei)en(kMic(' 
was celebrated by tin- City Comicil of Jioston, under the diivetion of a joint eoni- 
niittce, consistinjr of Aldermen Crane, Ilolbrook, Atkins, Hanson, Faxon, Aniory, 
and Brijrgs, and Couneilnien Doherty, Kobbins, Bnrgess, Webster, Burr, Henshaw, 
Frederick, Batchelder, Stetson, -Jones, Fowle, and vSprague, to whom, by their invi- 
tation, was added Mis Honor Mayor Lincoln. An amjjle ]iroo;ramnie for the 
amusement aiul edification of the people was arrauired, and was earned out in a 
manner altogetlicr successful and satisfactory. 

The city buildings, and the entrances to the Music Hall and to tlu' Common, 
were decorated in a fitting manner by Messrs. Lanii)rell and Marble. 

The customary salutes were tired from the Common at sunrise, noon, and sunset, 
and the bells of the city cliurclics were rung at the same hours. 

At eight o'clock, a grand concert was given ujiou the ( 'ommon, by a i)and com- 
[losed of the Brigade, Boston Brass, (icrmaina, and (iilnu)re's bands, all under the 
direction of Mr. B. A. Hurditt. A programme of ten pieces of music was jier- 
formed, including " Hail Colund)ia " and the " Star-Spaiiglcd Banner," to height- 
en the elFiM-t of wliich the guns of the Light Artillery were introduced. The 
( 'oucert coucliideil with " ( )ld Hundred;" the immense concoiu'se of jieople, who 
I'.ad been listening with gratilication to the jircvious jiicccs, joining in a grand and 
]iowcrful chorus. 

Shortly after idiu' o'clock, the Second Battalion of Infantry, Ca]it. Harrison 
Bitchie commanding, nnvrched from their armory to the parade-ground of thii Com- 
mon, and were there reviewed by the ]\Iayor and members of the City Council- 
The graceful and soldier-like movements of tbe corps were much admirid. 

The city procession was formed at the City Hall at ten o'cl(K-k, under the direc- 
tion of Micah Dyer, Jr., Chief Marshal, and twenty-five assistant Marshals. Es- 
cort duty w^as performed by the Second Battalion of Infantry, and the procession, 
headed by tbe Mayor and City Council, included in its ranks many of the represen- 
tative men of Boston, of all ])roi'essions and classes, as well as numerous distin- 
guished strangers. The route of the ]irocession was from the City Hall, thr<uigli 
School, Washington, Court, and Tremont streets to the Common, around the Com- 
mon u])on the malls, to West Street, and thence throuuli Tremont an<l Winter 
streets to the Iilusic H.dl. 



Long before the arrival of the i)rocession, ladies had tilled the galUaies. r|)on 
tlie stau'c was assembled a choir of about !.')() uirls and .')(• boys, selected from the 
(iiammar Schools. Nearly all of the uirls vvere dressed in white, and wore licauti- 
t'ul \\ rcatlis of flowers, ))resenting a charming ap])earaiice. 



Upon the ;irri\:il of the procession, the hall was crowded to its fnllest extent. 
The exercises l)e<;:in with a vohuitiuy by the Gcrmania Band, after which the fol- 
h)\viiii;- chant was siuil: l'> tlie juvenile choir, under the direction ol' Mr. Charles 
Butler. 

O siiij; until the Lord a new suuj- : 

For he hath done marvelloas tliinj(.s. 

With his own right hand, and with liis holy arm. 

Hath lie {gotten himself the victory. 

The Lord declared his salvation ; 

His rifihteuusness hath he oj)eiily showed in tlie sij^ht of the lieatlien 

lie liath remembered his mercy and truth toward the liouse of Israel ; 

And all the ends of the world have .seen the .salvation of our God 

8how yourselves joyful uuto the Lord, all ye lauds : 

.•Sing, rejoice, and give thanks. 

I'raise the Lord upon the harp; 

Sing to the harp with a psalm of thanksgiving. 

Witli trumiiets also, and shawms, 

(> show yourselves joyful before the Lord, the King. 

Let the sea make a noise, and all that therein is; 

The round world, and they that dwell therein. 

(iiory be to the Father, Almighty God : 

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

As it was in the beginning, is now, and evertShall be : 

World without end. Amex. 

Rev. William K. Nicholson ottered a fervent prayer, which was followed by the 
singinf; of the followinji' original ode, written by A. Wallace Thaxter, Esq. 

Kai.se the pa>an 1 swell the cliorus. 

Hailing i'reedom's natal day! 
Let the men that were before us 

Wake a new triumphal lay! 
]!e their true hearts and their glory 

Fittest theme for minstrel's lyre! 
Chant agiiin the deathless story! 

Light another vestal fire! 

fhough their ashes be around u.s 

And their bones in every vale, 
fies that bind them still have bound us; 

For alike the Northern gale 
.Vnd the soft 8outh breeze are sweejiing 

Over graves of lathers dead, 
And their sons their yireceiits keeijing 

Prove " the spirit lias not tied.'' 

Nortlnnan! Southron! slill be clinging 

To the heirloom of your sires ! 
iie the watchword, " Union," ringing 

From your tongues and by your tires ! 
May no power but One Supernal 

Kver lend the tie ajiart, — 
• Inining, in embrace fraternal. 

North id Soulli. and h.'arl lo heart ' 



i') 



Tlic l)ecl;ir;iti()ii of liidcpciKk'Hcc was then read liy Mr. Satnucl H. Kanrlall. 
The fulluwiiiL;- ori'-'inal ode was then siiiiii- : — 

Native Land!— Our wiinn lumt's adoiatiou. 

Once again at tliy >lniiK' we are bending. 
While our voices, w itii jrhul acclamation. 

K.xultingly welcome tiie hour, 
When our father.'* their freedom declaring. 

Itraved boldly the trial impenilini;-. 
Their bo.som.s unrtinchingly baring. 
Defying fierce 'JyrannyV power. 
-May the same jture and chi\ alric spirit 

(Jur hearts with like tervor inspire, 
And our acts .show wherein we inheril 

riie high love of Freedom they knew: 
And when ndndful in oft retrosjiection. 

Of their deeds that we proudly admire. 
.May tlie light we tlerive from reflection. 
.Make us to our country moie true. 

Not alone by the bells' Joyous ]iealing. 

Not alonr by the cannons" glad llninder. 
Shall we body the tone of our ieeling 
And hi\'e of our C(iniitr\ confess; 
I5ut, i|uickened by new loolution. 

We vow that no cause e"ci' shall sunder 
I'iie ties of our loved Coiislitutidii, 

Or weaken its ])owej tu ble--. 
Still to guard it be our lirm endeavor. 

With more than a lilial devotion. 
In the hope that its Union forever 

With undimming glory nuiy stand: 
And the thought of its claim must awaken 

The heart's patriotic emotion. 
And a faith in the future, uusliaken. 
For our ow u. (lur <lear nati\ e land, 

Hon. Edwarfl Everett was then ]jieseiite(l to the aiidieiiee \>y the Mayor, and he 
proceeded to the delivery of his oralioii. Diirini; tlie delivery of the address, the 
orator was warmly eiieered, and the o\ati(>n to the S])e:iker was such as is seldom 
seen u|)oii a similar occasion. At the close of the oration, the Doxolofry was 
snnp; by the choir, the audience risiiii;- and joining- in sincrinf; tlie hist verse: — 

From all that dwell belnw the skies 
Let the Creatoi's praise arise; 
Let the Ivedeemer's name be sung. 
Through every land by every tongue. 

Internal are thy mercies, J.,ord. — 
Eternal truth attends thy word : 
Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore. 
Till .«uns shall ri.se and set no more. 



M» 



A liPiHMlictidii was ]iroii()iiiuril Ijy Ml'v. Mr. XiiluiNoii, tlic aiidieiicL' ilisjicrseii, 
and tlie niuiiicipal procfssiciu was aLiaiii tonufil and niarclu'd in Fancnil ilall to 
partako of tlic City Dinner. 

Ui;(iATTA. 

At noon, the City Heiratta for rowin<;- boats took place on Cliarles Hiver. I'lizos 
to the amount of $675 liad been offered by tlie sub-committee liaving the matter in 
cliarge, and a board of live judges, (Messrs. (reorsje H. Bramau, Charles A. Chase, 
S. 11. Buekinoham, Natlianiel McKay, and James Dingley) assisted in preparini;- 
the regulations to be observed by competinj;' I)oats, and in su]jerintendin<.i' the )-aees. 
Thousands upon thousands of people manifested their interest in this feature of the 
celebration by assembling- on the mill-dam and in other available localities to wit- 
ness the contests. The races commenced i)romptly, and were conducted in a man- 
ner which received the praise of all jieisons specially concerned in aquatic recrea- 
tions, as well as of the genei-al nnxss of s])cctat(irs. The piizes were woti by the 
followiiiiz; named jiersons and crews : — 

.Sliell VVlicrrii's,— :M. f?. Sniitli, .^ffiO 

" '• Ij. Kinsley. 25 

Lapstroak Wlierrie?, — A. H. Claik GO 

M. F. Wells, , . 25 

Double Scall Lapstreaks, — Doyle & Colbert 75 

Daley & Wells, 30 

Six-oared Lapstreaks. — So])liomore ("lass of Harvard Colleire, . . 100 

" "Tbetis.'' — Freshman Class of Harvard Coll.. "lO 

Six and four-oared Sliel Is. 'Harvard.'" 175 

'•J. Kiloy,' ....... 75 

BAI.I.OON ASCENSIONS. 

Three balloons were sent nj) from the Common in the afternoon, under the direc- 
tion of Messrs. King and Allen. The aseensidus were witnessed by a vast con- 
course of jieople, and proved in every respect satisfactory, each one of the three 
beino- conducted in the most skilful manner. The " Zephyrus," navioated by 
Ezra Allen, went up at 4| o'clock, and landed in Waltham. Tli ■ " Bille of 
New England," navigated by Dr. Helm was the next to go up, and laiid'-d in Mat- 
taiian. The third ascension was made by Mr. Samuel A. King, in the large balloon 
"Queen of the Air." He was accom]iauied by a lady of I'hiladelphia, and Mr. 
E. B. Haskell, rei>orter of the Ilcrnhl. Their voyage was, according to the written 
account of Mr. Haskell, a most pleasant and successful one. The balloon rose 
from the Common with majestic grace, and for hours hovered about tlie city, 
Hoatin'T over and near it, so as to be visible by its residents, till nearly nine o'clock. 
After sailino- south as far as Dedham, it took a northerly course, and finally landed 
on a firm in tliftown of Croion about one o'clock, a, m. on the .5th of July. 

riii; FiuicwoHKS, 
in the evening, were from tiu' manufactory of A. Lanergan X: Co. ; and tlie ))yro- 
teclinic skill of that tirm was well display.-d in the varied i)rogramnie wliich they 
furnishfd for the entertainnicut of the great ninllitudr of spectators assend)le(l upon 
the (^nuinoii. 












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